Harvest of the Soulless
by Poe2
Summary: Trunks and Pan had what seemed like the perfect relationship, when behind the lies and deceit, Pan is governed by an incurable infatuation for Vegeta. As events unfold, Pan learns what emotion can drive a person to do. *COMPLETED!*
1. Truth

Harvest of the Soulless

By Poe

Chapter One:

Truth

_"Deception, you've hurt me,_

_But mostly I've deceived myself._

_Oh, where? Where have I gone?_

_Where has this man hidden me?"_

            I stood there, alone in my now messy room, looking into the mirror and seeing what 18 years of life amounted to. Short, black hair, childlike features, and clothes my mother always hated but I felt comfortable in. I seldom wore makeup, and refused to ever wear a dress. In other words, I was a complete tomboy and had been for years. Sometimes, like now, I hated it. 

            Looking at the mirror, I realized how messy my life was and how much it reflected in my appearance. My eyes were bland and lifeless, I had lost a lot of weight, and I didn't bother forcing any smiles. I used to be so innocent and happy, but now I was bitter and resentful. I hated the world and, judging from my appearances, it hated me back.

            My mother's primary concern was my attitude and loss of weight. She thought it was because I was dating Trunks, that she made clear to me. We had been dating for 7 months, and some 3 months ago I began to fall into depression. It made sense to assume it was Trunks' fault, perhaps due to some turmoil in the relationship. But it wasn't true, far from it. Trunks was too goddamn perfect to make me depressed.

            So I guess I start my story with the truth. Lies, deception, and everything else radiate within me. But that's not how I like things to be. I like things simple, the way they used to be. So here, standing before the mirror, I see what is real, what is tangible. I see my life and what a disaster it is and what it has made me. And that's where things start, with a mistake.

            7 months ago, the supposed love of my life, asked me if I wanted to be his girlfriend. This love, this infatuation of mine, had actually asked me if I wanted to have a relationship with him. Trunks was my childhood crush, so I felt a great responsibility to myself to accept. Not only that, I was thrilled that he had asked me in the first place, I would be insane to refuse his offer. 

            That's a time of my life where things were too wonderful to be real. It was like a dream, hearing the phone ring and knowing it was him calling, going to trendy restaurants with him and only him, and just knowing he was finally my boyfriend. As cheesy and unlike me it all sounds, it was very much real. I was dating the man of my dreams, and I thought it would never end. 

            He took me on dates all the time; we were inseparable. He stopped joking about me being a kid, and he started taking me seriously. Trunks called me when he said he would and treated me like an equal. He became everything I wanted him to be, it was like he read my mind and turned himself into my dream man.

            But of course, I was only fooling myself. He wasn't perfect, I was just too happy to realize it. I even thought I was in love with him, that my new goal in life was to marry him and be with him for the rest of my life. Looking back on this, I laugh. I didn't have the faintest clue of what it was like to become obsessed with someone. 

            Obsession is where things take a hideous turn. But it wasn't an obsession with Trunks that accomplished this, quite the opposite. He was wonderful at making sure I was rarely disappointed by him, that I was happy with who he was. Instead, an infatuation took root in me for someone outside my secure relationship with Trunks.   

            Without any control, I was governed by this infatuation suddenly and swiftly. Not exactly love at first sight, but actually something close to it. I saw this person once and it was like meeting him for the first time, and falling in love with him instantly. In my mind, he was someone I had never known before, someone perfect. He was what Trunks once was but couldn't ever be again.

            And worse of all, he was Vegeta. 

            Surprising? Of course, and especially for me. I couldn't believe myself when I felt feelings begin to develop, I had to deny it. I wanted to slap myself in the face whenever I felt an attraction to him creep up on me, I wanted to pretend that I was just temporarily delusional. So much denial filled me, I could barely understand myself.

            By now I'm tired of lying to myself. I admit I was obsessed with Vegeta, and unfortunately still am. I say it with shame, and of course, question. Why Vegeta? Why then?

            The answers to these questions come easily at times. I remember watching him from a distance since my early childhood, watching him so far away and so handsome. I never felt feelings for him until then, but he always stirred up admiration in me. He was a jerk, and that was exactly what I wanted to be. He was the opposite of what my parents forced me to act like; he was the untamed Saiyan within me. 

            I never liked him in any other way than some indirect and subtle role model probably because I liked Trunks. Once the joy for being with Trunks faded, a new lust bred in me. It couldn't have been love, what I felt for Trunks was love, even if it was like a friend. No, I was attracted to Vegeta, not in love with him. 

            Nonetheless, I felt sick and wrong. It took so long to believe myself, to keep from hitting myself for being so foolish. It's still a little hard not to give myself a mental slap in the face every time I think about him. 

            But the worst part of it all, of course, was his age. I liked older guys, but this was ridiculous! Even while I was dating Trunks I felt some moral qualms kick in every time I was reminded of his age, but it wasn't a tremendous ordeal I would have to conquer. With Vegeta, it was enough to drive me insane. 

            It didn't help that he was evil, either. I'm sure deep down he loved his family, but if he didn't even care enough to show it, how could he love me? I didn't have a chance of having any meaningful relationship with him, it was obvious. I was lucky if he used me as a cheep thrill, it would mean that at least he didn't think of me as a child. 

            And of course, there was the marriage factor. Everyone talked about his relationship with Bulma as though it were the most wonderful thing in the world. They would say, with smiles, how she had made him civil. How she was best for him, and how lucky they were together. I, on the other hand, didn't share that opinion.

            For a while I hated her. I couldn't accept that the only man I loved, or thought I loved, was taken. She could've been anyone and I would've hated her, my feelings for Vegeta were that strong. Every time I saw her, which was often thanks to my boyfriend, I would have to force my smiles and try to be polite. As much as I hated it, I didn't want anyone to have the barest hint that I was jealous. Time passed, and I quelled my feelings of anger towards Bulma. I don't hate her anymore, I'm can safely assume I'm more mature now. I know hating her won't get me Vegeta, and how polluting hate is. 

            Regardless of whether I hated her or not, I paid close attention to any signs of turmoil in their relationship. It was constant, sometimes I would go over to Trunks' house and Vegeta wouldn't be anywhere near. He would even disappear for weeks, but typically only for days.  I never heard an argument when I was over at the Briefs house, probably because they didn't talk much. Things didn't worsen, either, giving my hopes a swift, and almost fatal blow. I was hoping things would build up to the point where either one's pride would grow and grow until they couldn't stand tolerating one another. But of course, they didn't.

            At least, as far as I knew.

            So months passed and my relationship with Trunks was one-sided bliss. He was happy, and I was perfectly content faking I was fine while using the relationship as an excuse to forget about Vegeta. As far as Trunks was concerned, our relationship had no reason to end for a long time. He was fooled, and that was all that mattered.  

It wasn't long before my depression started to show. I slept less and less, struggling not to fall behind in my studies. I knew if my grade dropped, my parents would demand me not to date Trunks any longer, making my cover more easily blown. So, I did everything else I wanted to except forget about school.

I wrote dark poetry, stopped wearing colors, and transitioned into a photograph of teenage angst. Typical of someone my age, so my friends didn't notice much either. A lot of them were angry and bitter anyway, so who cared if I fit in a little more. To be honest, I was a little disappointed with them and everyone else for not noticing. It made me even angrier, and my depression a shade deeper. I thought I was just another meaningless soul, living in a desolate world with only one name.

Vegeta. 

I used to have girlish makeup reserved for special events, but I threw it all out in a fit of anger. I also began to read dark stories and quote gothic poetry on papers and mirrors in my room. My artwork in school was always depressing, as bleak as I felt and half as lonely. 

Still, I felt things for that man. And there I was, staring at the mirror and seeing what 4 months of depression can do to a girl. Vegeta did horrors to me without even realizing it, but he hadn't destroyed me. I was standing, though not very strong, and I hadn't tried anything stupid yet. 

I suppose here is where I say that everything turned out fine from then on and that even though my love was not returned; I still lived and moved on. You know, those happy endings to stories about girls who fell in love with the wrong person and then later decide that, because ethics are more important to them, they can just throw their feelings away and start anew. No, I was too stubborn to forget everything Vegeta meant to me. 

Then again, how could I? He was a subject of my perpetual, unrequited love. He was a face in a faceless crowd. In short, he was everything to me in a world of nothing.

I shook my head, as if trying to shake off my thoughts. All I did was think of him, I couldn't help but tire of it. Looking in the mirror, I smoothed down my hair and inspected myself to make sure my mother wouldn't have any nagging complaints. I had a date with Trunks, she would be concerned if I didn't make a half-decent effort to arrange myself. And now, of course, was not the time to be thinking about Vegeta. I had plenty of time for thoughts, that I was sure of. 

Taking one last glance at myself, I decided it was time to go. I put my hand to the doorknob and opened to door, drifting out my room and leaving memories behind. I was going to see Trunks, I should've been excited and nervous as I had been before. This attraction that had manifested in me was killing my entire thrill around Trunks. I wasn't happy to see him, but at least I wasn't dreading being with him. 

It would take a lot more than some obsession to keep me reluctant around Trunks, a younger part of me said. I smiled at this comment, memories and dwellings I thought I had left behind drifting back at me. I smiled at how the part of me that loved Trunks was almost still alive in me, giving me the smallest part of joy for being with him still. 

Down the stairs I walked, seeing my mother and father talking by the door. They noticed me, they had earlier thanks to ki, and turned to me. My mother looked bright and happy, content with my dad, as he was content with her. I wondered if I would ever be like that, just happy. 

"Pan, Trunks is on his way, you're ready, right?" my mother asked. She was more used to this idea of me dating Trunks than I was, it seemed 7 months were longer than I expected.

"Yeah, I guess," I responded, without much feeling as I often did. My hand was dragging on the handrail, my eyes not meeting my parents'. 

"Pan, honey, you don't look like you're taking care of yourself," my father said, concern in his voice, "are you sure you don't want to brush your hair a little more or something?"

"I'm fine." 

            "Pan, we're worried about you, why do you keep acting like nothing's wrong?"  my mother asked, agitated.

            "It's nothing you can help with," I responded sharply, "so don't make a big deal out of it."

            "Pan, don't use that tone with me-" A doorbell interjected. I sighed, secretly with relief that another argument wouldn't be started, and then smoothed down my hair once again. 

            "I'll see you later," I said, finishing my walk down the stairs quickly and opening the front door. 

Trunks stood there looking the opposite I did. He was well dressed, very clean, and surprisingly cheerful. The only thing that was disorderly about him was his hair, most likely from the flight there. He wore his typical clothes, staring at me with his father's eyes the soft curves of his mother's facial features.

            "Hey Pan, you ready?" he asked 

            "Yeah," I turned to my parents, "I'll be back by 9." My father looked a mixture of sadness and concern and my mother looked angry from my disrespect. It was moments like these that I realized how dysfunctional my family was.

            "Ok then," my father started, "you two have fun, don't get into trouble." My father was so naive sometimes, I almost rolled my eyes.

            "Bye," I said briskly, just to end the conversation. And then I stepped outside and shut the door behind me, not taking a last glance at my parents. Trunks looked at me without a hint of curiosity as to why I was acting so aggressive. 

            "So, what do you have planned?" I asked before we took off.

            "I was thinking the usual. You know, renting some movies and hanging out at my house."

            My thoughts and casualty pulled to a screeching halt. I couldn't believe him. His house. We did go there often, but going there always made me so tense. I was surprised he didn't notice. Just the thought of being near Vegeta made me so happy and so sad all at the same time. Not to mention angry with myself for being happy in the first place. 

            I opened my mouth to conjure up an excuse, but nothing came. I wanted to be near Vegeta, it was what I lived for. I spent all my time thinking about him; sometimes I wondered if I only used Trunks as a pawn to get closer to him. So, instead of me making up some brilliant excuse as to why we should go somewhere else instead of near Vegeta, I said the most ludicrous thing I could've said.

            "Sure, why not?"

            Now don't get me wrong, I understand that there is a fine line between things I should say and things I want to say, but apparently I just subconsciously blur that line, and blurt out whatever I want to. 

            And out of all things I could've said, I said the worst thing I could've said. Worse than if I had strategically conjured up some mathematical and precise way of sending myself straight to the bowels of hell.  

            Out of all the things I could've said, I said the truth.

            I sighed internally and got ready to take to the skies with Trunks. Looking at my house, I remembered my parents, caught in my endless storm of depression. Such suffering, such pain, all because of one man.

            I looked at the house and Trunks and then hated the truth. I hated loving Vegeta, a married man, a savage, and a cruel and cold-hearted man who was far too old for me and probably not interested at all. I hated myself for not liking Trunks the way he liked me; he deserved my love, not Vegeta.

            But still, above all, I hated the truth. 

It was, after all, all that I had left. 


	2. Bottom of the Ocean

Harvest of the Soulless

By Poe

Chapter 2: The Bottom of the Ocean

_"Time has been spent,_

_Here at the bottom of the ocean,_

_Where everyday is a winter day,_

_When night and day are just a blur,_

_And like the water, I'm just a passive green,_

_And like the people,_

_Far, far above,_

_I wish I had ears to listen,_

_And a body to swim away." _

            I arrived at Capsule Corporation wind-torn and breathless. Trunks was by my side, he had urged me to fly faster than I had ever before. I landed wind-torn and breathless, a spark of happiness flooding the air around me. He had challenged me to a race and I, the competitive girl I am, hadn't dared to refuse. At first I thought I was sure I had won, but he had made a fool of me by letting me win. His gestures of chivalry were not easily the accustomed to, my pride demanded. But nonetheless, he had proved himself to be an eccentric man. It was a shame I loved him no more. 

            We spent the day at Capsule Corporation as any other, as friends. Our laughter that day played a song in my head as it ended, a song of us together. If only we were meant to be. We could've conquered the world, him and I, with our joy and ambition alone. I loved it when he made me forget, when he made me feel new again.

            And yet, the longing would never recede. Perhaps the real joy of me being in Capsule Corporation was being near Vegeta. Just the thought of knowing I was near him made my thoughts race and my heart pound, it produced a thrill in my soul that no other man could match. I was only meters away from him that whole day, all my days away from him made me want only that. To be near him. To be with him. 

            Later that night, when things were clear and the moon laid sheen over the ground like an alchemist who had turned the earth to silver, I left Vegeta. It was time to go, I could stay no longer, so I left the place of tattered dreams. I left Trunks and our moments together and walked outside. My life had recently been just that, leaving things behind. Perhaps just a part of growing up, of fooling yourself into thinking you were in love. 

            In any case, I walked outside and looked up at the stars. They formed a canopy of elegant beauty above me, so distant and far away. I tried to think how insignificant I was in the vast expanse of the universe, and how my problems were petty and trivial. I was lucky to be who I was, one of the last members of a breed whose blood weakens with each generation. But ultimately, my problems meant nothing. And yet, I continued to pine after him as though his love meant everything to me.

            And as much as I hated it, it did. 

I was walking there because Trunks had not offered to take me home, but I didn't care. Strolling along side the forests near CC, I couldn't find a care in me for anything but Vegeta.  A man who, obviously, wouldn't even notice if I were alive or dead.

Still, an attraction pulled me to him. Were we meant to be together, or was this just some phase that would pass away? Would I love him always, or would I forget him in a few months? What would happen to us?

One thing I knew was that waiting there would not bring me answers. And anyway, I had to get home before my curfew.  Enchanting walks under the stars were enjoyable, but no excuse strong enough to quell my mother's anger for me being late. I had to abandon thoughts and questions and go home, a place of order and civilization. 

I checked my watched and gasped when I saw that I was terribly late. Powering up, the leaves and dirt around me shot out from all sides as my ki level skyrocketed from what it was before. I rose off the ground slowly and then, in a burst of energy, I took to the skies. The wind rushed around me and I was climbing above the treetops around me, but all I could think about was how my mother was going to kill me.

Higher and higher I climbed, gaining enough altitude to make the trees look far smaller than they were before. Then, once I was high enough, I barreled through the air forwards and homebound. I flew at a speed I could have never boasted about two years ago, and yet I didn't even take notice. Instead, I turned around and looked back at Capsule Corporation as I flew away. 

Trunks was there, Bra was there, and most importantly, Vegeta was there. And I was leaving them all, just because I was late. An honest reason, but it wasn't enough for me. I always felt a bitter pain when I left Capsule Corporation, one that seemed near unbearable. At first it was because I was leaving Trunks, but now it was because I was leaving his father.

As ironic as I thought that who situation was, it was nothing compared to what would come.

If only I knew. 

            That night, safe in bed, I dreamt a beautiful dream. 

I dreamt I was loved, that I was with Vegeta. Bulma was gone and far away- he had left her long ago, evidently- and now he had everything he wanted because he was with me. He wouldn't show any of this love, of course, not even in the slightest. No affection, no kindness, only insults and harassments.

And yet, I knew. I knew he loved me as much as he was capable to. 

In this dream, I was finally happy. Happiness had taken on a literal form, as dreams often do, and it took the shape of a cloud inside a box wrapped in fancy paper. It was ridiculous fiction, something I didn't often dream about. Usually I dreamt about battles, about adventures, never clouds and relationships. 

And yet, there I was, with a present in a box that was my happiness. As a little piece of vapor, I knew it would not stay for long. But I didn't care, I was happy. It was everything I wanted. 

One scene in the dream that particularly impacted me, was one with Vegeta and I. What I loved about it was that it was everything I would've wished for. It was something that would never happen, one dream I was so lucky to have. And yet, it was strangely simple and beautiful at the same time. 

The most apparent thing in the dream was that it was summertime. Vegeta and I were in a summer home in the south of Japan near the beaches; one our dream selves probably didn't live it. It was just a rental, probably; we still had our lives back home waiting for us. We each had our excuses for being there; no one knew where we were exactly. But we had summer together, even if it meant returning home. No one could take that away from us.  

I sat inside, looking out, on the soft, carpeted floor. Next to me was Happiness, floating above its recently unwrapped box. The tissues had been ripped off and lay next to it like open flower petals, the ribbon underneath it and showing itself on both sides. I had just opened it, and I remembered clearly the joy that flooded my eyes and the way the light shone on my hands when I tore off the paper.

Outside, I saw Vegeta. He was there, so near and handsome. He was finally mine, and I could feel my soul radiate with elation because of it. I was fulfilled, I was with the man I loved, and everything fit together. I had spent my life with him at a distance, and in the dream, I was with him. Perfection had never been so within my grasp as it had in that imaginary moment. 

He was looking out at the beach, and almost stood on it. The sands from the beach sloped upward to meet the foundation of our house, so it was right there. He was on the balcony, but he could rise up over the balcony and then down to the beach any time he wanted to. Instead he stood there, looking at the water. 

The beach was deserted and we were completely alone. I couldn't have asked for more.

Then, suddenly, as everything was peaceful and right, tragedy reared its ugly head. Happiness started to hover forward. I stared at it for a moment, in shock at the fact that it was moving and trying to figure out what it was going to do. It was moving towards the window and I gasped. It was leaving.

I reached out and tried to grab it, to claw at it with my fingernails. It couldn't leave, the dream had just begun. I knew happiness was ephemeral, but it was too soon and too fast. As if trying to spite me, my fingers went right through it. It continued towards the window and Vegeta and I was powerless to stop it.

The glass wasn't much of a barrier either; the little cloud went right through it. I watched in helplessness and frustration as it went towards Vegeta. I reached up and open the window and ran out to the balcony, where at least I could watch it leave. I tried to claw at it some more, but it was futile. 

Vegeta looked at me with an emotionless face. Behind it, I knew he was telling me something. Something he could've told me in a mocking, sardonic tone but instead he chose to be silent. 

"Let it go," he said to me with no words, with no speech, without even expression. He said it to me through my own interpretation, my dreams limiting me to only being able to learn from him in this way. 

The cloud called Happiness kept going, floating past the balcony and down to the beach. Out it went, farther and farther towards the ocean. It met the waters and continued, disappearing past the surface.

I looked at him, panic stricken.

"I can't let this happen! It was right there, Vegeta, and now it can't be gone! It was right there, just a few seconds ago!" His cold, unfeeling stare showed no acknowledgment at my frustration, but I didn't expect it to. 

Instead I used my ki to hover upwards, my feet leaving the ground. I hovered over the balcony, Vegeta watching me with that same, unreadable gaze. I turned back to him, tears flooding my eyes.

"No, this can't be happening, I've waiting too long for Happiness!"

"It won't come back," he said, his tone sour.

"Why not?"

"It won't come back. If I left, would I come back?" he sneered this through his teeth as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Then I'm going to get it. I'll make it come back!"

            "The coward is never happy. Happiness is gone until you acknowledge that, not that you ever will."

            I covered my ears. "You're wrong! I'm going to get it, and I'll show you and everyone else and I'll get it!" I turned back, facing the beach and my original plan.

            I was going to fly out and get Happiness even if it killed me. It was the perfect plan, if I caught it I would be happy, and if I didn't, I would die. Death would bring me no pain, and I would never be lonely or sad. Never again. 

            And then, as suddenly as Happiness had left me, I woke up. 

            Not by my own will, I woke up when I felt someone's presence somewhere in the room. The dream faded to black and a jerked up, flung forwards in alarm. My dream was over, but even more shockingly, I was awoken by someone in my room.

            My heart was pounding from being flung from the dream world and tears had flooded down my cheeks. The blankets of my bed had been thrown to the floor all except for a thin sheet, which had been wrapped and tangled about me from tossing and turning. Sweat dampened my hair, and adrenaline coursed through my veins. These were strange causes of such a short and foolish dream.  

            Then, I remembered what had awakened me. Someone was in my room, and I had a feeling it wasn't my parents. My head jerked to the side and I saw the window open, the curtains fluttering in the breeze. Broken glass was all over the floor, someone obviously had opened the door the hard way. 

            My heart pounded faster and faster. Why did this have to be happening? Why now? I had just been awoken from a beautiful dream and now there was a stranger in my house. Sure, I could handle the stress, but waking up to feeling the presence of an outsider in my room was outlandishly stressful.  

It knew wasn't a burglar, which would be the least of my concerns. The human aspect of Chikyuu was safe for a Saiyan, impeccably so.  No, it wasn't a thief breaking in at the middle of the night, which would be too easily handled. It was someone else, someone I knew. 

            Whoever it was that had awakened me was obviously not still at the window, he or she had probably entered the house by then. I looked over to the other side of the room and, miraculously, I saw a figure. From the shadows I couldn't make out if it was friend or foe, but my hands tightened into a grip in fear. 

            There it was.

            If it was a thief, I could handle it on my own. If it were a Saiyan, it wouldn't be much of a problem considering I knew them all very well and all my life. If it were some other alien or android, well, that was extremely unlikely. Even concluding said possibilities; I still was gripped by fear.

            Who was it? Did it notice me? What was it doing in my room at that hour?

The figure noticed me, jerked, and then walked towards me in a swift and warrior-like walk. From the stature and walk I could immediately who it was. As he neared, it became clear and my conjecture had been correct.

            Vegeta.

            "Where is your father?" he snapped at me. My eyes widened at the absurdity of the question.

            "What are you doing in my room?" I exclaimed, angry and very confused. Why was he in my room at that hour and what in the hell did he want with my father? Fuming, I sincerely hoped all of this had a very good explanation. 

            "Answer my question, brat! I have my reasons, and they are none of your concern!"

            "Yes, they are! It's 2:00 in the morning, you've broken into my room, demanding to know where my father is and you expect me to answer calmly like it was the most normal thing in the world? Sorry, I can't! Now tell me what you're doing in my room!"

            Even though it was dark, I could tell the vein in his forehead had begun to swell. "Are you capable of answering a simple question without intruding in my affairs? Or is that a feat of too much competence for you to even begin to consider?"

            I gasped in anger. "Your affairs? Hey, it's my room, my father, and sleep you've taken from me, so I think I can safely say that I have enough business with all of this to ask my own question!"

            "Why am I wasting time with such stubbornness!" he exclaimed, turning to leave, "It's obvious you know less about Kakkarot's urchin's location than I do, so I'll resume this fruitless discussion no longer."

            "Wait!" I said, climbing out of bed so I could face him, "what are you saying? It obviously must be important if it brought you all the way here!"

            "Where do you think your father is? Sleeping peacefully with his family like some fucking innocent, normal person?"

            "Yes! Where else would he be? And why would he be there?"

            "You know nothing about what he's been engaging in for the past few months?"

            My eyes widened. What was he getting at? "Look, you still haven't answered why you're in my room!"

            "Nor do I have any obligation to," he hissed, looking around before turning to the broken window.

            "Of course you do, you just broke into my house! The least you can do is explain to me why!"

            "Well that's just too bad, now isn't it?" He was powering up to fly out the window and I felt my blood begin to boil with anger. Who was he kidding, breaking into my room and then flying off with no explanation?

            "You said something about my father, is **that** why you are here?"

            He turned towards me in the middle of powering up with an angry expression. "I'm not falling for you games."

            "Games?" What was he talking about now?

            "You'd be insane to think a warrior like me would not be experienced at detecting lies from truth."

            "What?" I exclaimed, confused and exhausted from being jolted out of bed. "You think I'm lying? About what?"

            "You're to tell me that you, his daughter, does not know where Kakarot's spawn has been doing at this hour?"

            My eyes widened. "My dad is doing something?"

            He smirked. "He has kept you very ignorant, not that it would be a feat too difficult to accomplish."

            I ignored his insult, but my pajama-clad self crossed its arms. "He's kept me ignorant about what?"

            "Haven't you been listening?"

"Of course I've been listening. You're saying he's going off in the middle of the night, doing something you're not telling me what is, and leaving his whole family completely unsuspecting? Why should I believe you?"

            He scoffed. "Check for yourself, his ki is not anywhere near this house."

            I took a moment to see if he was right, and sure enough, only my mother was detectable. My face filled with panic. "He is gone! What is he doing? And why does it involve you? And why did you need to break into my house?"

            He looked at me for a second, up and down. There was a brief pause. 

"No, I don't have to explain any of this to you. There is no more information you have to offer me." Vegeta turned back around, presumably to leave, but I grabbed his arm. He had told me my father had been lying to me and now he was just going to leave. I wouldn't accept it; I had to lie so I could get more information out of him.

"I wouldn't be so sure of that. You came here for a reason, I'm guessing to find him. I'm Gohan's daughter, and I know him better than you do. If you just tell me what's going on, I can help you."

"And how, pray tell, would you do that?"

"Well, you want to know where he is, right? And I do too, so I can take you to him!"

            A pause. "You can't handle it. You won't believe me, you're just a child."

            Anger flared in my eyes. "Just tell me! I need to know, and I can help you!"

            "You don't know what you're asking."

            "I can handle it, trust me."

            He looked at me for what seemed like a long time after I had said those words. I couldn't tell what he was thinking from his face, but I had a feeling he was judging on whether to tell me or not.

            "It's nothing surprising. Your family has a history of it."

            "Of what?"

"Your father is doing something dishonorable to the Saiyan race."

            My eyes narrowed in skepticism. "What's that?"

            He stared at me coldly, deep into my eyes. "Something dishonorable, in the middle of the night, and not telling his family. Specifically, not telling his wife."

            I looked at him in innocent confusion. "What are you getting at?"

            His gaze deepened. "What do people do at night, little girl, what do men do that they don't tell their wives about?"

            "Dad doesn't drink-"

            "Think, brat, think long and hard. It's a concept even someone as disgustingly pure as you can understand."

            I didn't understand it because I didn't want to. He was suggesting something that was impossible for me to associate with my father. Vegeta was obviously telling me that my father was having an affair, but it was something I could not accept. I had to be misunderstanding something, it couldn't have been true.

            "He's always been faithful to my mother! You can't mean that he's having an affair, that's just not my father!"

            "Don't be so goddamn naïve! Your father has been having an affair for months!"

            "No!" I yelled at him, taking a step backwards, "You can't tell me that! It's a lie! You don't just break into my house, wake me up, and tell me all these lies! Why are you doing this to me? Why are you lying to me?"

            "What would I gain in telling you lies about your father? Don't be ridiculous!" 

            "No! My father is not having an affair! I don't believe you!" 

            "Now isn't the time for childish denial! You're father is fucking someone besides your mother, face it!"

            "Why do you care?" I asked, feeling my eyes well up at the situation. He was yelling at me things that were painful and disturbing in the middle of the night after breaking into my room and harassing me. How could I believe any of that? Things were so surreal, I questioned if I was still in the dream. "Why did you come here to tell me this? Just to upset me as some sort of sick joke? I thought you hated me and him and everyone else and wanted to stay away from us!" 

            "You're not going to understand what I'm going to tell you, what's the point?"

            "Ok! I believe you! I believe that Dad's having an affair!" I lied, trying to get as much information out of him as I could. Still, it was completely untrue. Who, in my situation, would ever believe him? "Now just tell me what you are doing here!"

            "Who do you think he's having an affair with?" he spat, "It's quite obvious!"

            "Bulma?" I gasped, in horror. Could it be?

            "Ha! You think I would do more than rid myself of her if I found out she wasn't faithful? No, brat, I certainly would not be as offended as I am now."

            "Then who else is it? Who else could my father have an 'affair' with?" Hearing the words coming from me made it sound like I actually believed him. I was sure I didn't, but still curious as to the details of the presumed lie. Unfortunately, he didn't answer. Instead, he let me guess who it could possibly be. 

            "Someone you are having an affair with? Someone you like? I don't know, who is it?" I asked, impatiently. 

            He stared at me with those unearthly eyes, eyes that only an alien could posses. Black, lifeless, and something I could be swallowed in. He stared at me and all I saw was his eyes and everything behind them. The conversation fell behind me and I was absorbed in a trance, lost in his apathetic gaze.

I looked at those eyes and saw distance, I saw a man still stuck on that dead planet of Vegetasei. He still carried the culture, probably still spoke the language, and still hated people that were different than him, as he had been taught. I saw someone I thought I had fallen in love with, someone who was untamed and cruel as anyone could be. I saw someone whose soul had been torn from him and thrown to the wastes of the universe. I saw someone who lived alone, far away and at a place with no one else. At the bottom of an ocean, where the water was his broken dreams, crushing him down with sheer weight. 

I saw a man who could never be free and in that, I saw the answer to my question.

His daughter.

My father was having an affair with Bra. 


	3. Deception and Misconception

Harvest of the Soulless

By Poe

Chapter 3: Deception and Misconception

_"Your politics have made me weak,_

_Dulling the world and leaving scars so bleak,_

_Thoughts have come of some other day,_

_Where memories are detached and stray. _

_Yes, I have misconceived your mischief,_

_Such folly has left me quiet in this rift,_

_Fasting from love and love's kin,_

_Pleading to God, 'Make me happy again.'"_

            "Your daughter? My father and your daughter?" I exclaimed, my head spinning. This was too much. My dad, the innocent, lovable Gohan, having a secret, midnight romance with my obsession's daughter? How could this be true? And if it were true, what irony that my friend would be suffering such a similar infatuation. Did she love my father as I loved hers?

            Impossible! None of it was true. It was just some grand misunderstanding that would all be cleared up as soon as we found my father. With all the lunacy that involved our family, it was no wonder a simple misjudgment would arise like this one. Perhaps they really were together, but for innocent reasons. There could be plenty of explanations, ones that didn't involve furtive affairs between a married man and a mere child.

            Though, honestly, if the situation were true, I could not offer much complaint other than the wedlock issue. If my father chose to divorce my mother, than I could not protest to any relationship between Bra and him. It would be hypocritical of me considering the sick, perpetual desire I had to be with Vegeta.

            No, I was thinking too far ahead. All of this was a misunderstanding and there was nothing more to it to that. My parents would not divorce, I would not have any half-siblings with my friend as the parent, and no one would ever speak of it again. Wait, half-siblings with Bra as the mother? I really was thinking ahead!

            "Why else do you think I would be here? To teach your coward of a father a lesson on dishonoring my bloodline!" Vegeta spoke, interrupting my thoughts. I snapped to consciousness at his foul words and a rather irrelevant thought crossed my mind. 

            "Look, let's get this straight, I do not believe my father is having an affair with your daughter. Do you have any real evidence, or anything?"

            "Does the fact that your father and my daughter are missing at the same time strike you as suspicious?" he stated, impatiently. 

            "Is there anyone else missing?" 

            "Do you think I bothered to check?"

            "Well maybe, if Trunks were missing too, it wouldn't seem as strange. You know, a higher chance of a logical explanation." A glare swallowed his features. 

            "All of this is still useless until we find them together, which they obviously are."

            "True, but maybe they aren't having an affair."

            "And what else would they be doing? Finger-painting?" 

            "Hey, she's not that young!" I said, taking it personally. 

            "Don't change the subject! I didn't come here so I could exercise my detective skills when I could be out killing the man who dishonored me-"

            "I think I know where he is," I interrupted, ignoring his threats on my father's life.

            "Well?"

            "I'll take you to him," I said, powering up.

            "What makes you so sure they're there?"

            "I know my father, trust me. He's there." I said this with supreme confidence. Vegeta gave a princely scoff and powered up as well, an aura of power surrounding us both. It was rather romantic, feeling my room tremble from our combine ki. 

            "Let's go."

            Immediately, I blasted forward. I jetted through the window frame, avoiding the shards of glass around the edge, with Vegeta close behind.

            "You'd better know what you're doing, brat," he snarled, humiliated for having to follow behind me.

            "I know where he is, you can be sure of that." I knew my father well enough, but this had a background.

            When I was a child, my father took me to a special place near the beach to play. Just us, warm sands, and rolling waves. He had told me about how lovely it was at night, when you could see the moon glimmering off the slow tides and the stars casting themselves over the water. I loved the sun, so we never returned there at night. Nonetheless, it had a special meaning for my father.

It probably made him feel more normal, going to the beach with his family instead of fighting alien intruders threatening the safety of Chikyuu. He probably wished for a tame life like I did then. Only then my wish was for a tame life away from Vegeta. I wondered if he ever hated loving Bra, knowing that he was a married man with a child. Did he even love her at all? How did I know that anything was going on?

In any case, that beach was where they had to be. I knew it, my dream has somehow, in its own strange way, confirmed it. Summer, tranquility, love, a home by the water, it had to do with my father and Bra. Maybe it wasn't really me in the dream, but merely a metaphor for my father. Still, it wasn't time to jump to conclusions. I had to get there, to the beach, and find out what was going on.

Vegeta and I didn't speak anymore on the way there. We just flew, diving through the night air and calmly approaching what could be a disastrous situation. I almost forgot that he had just broken into my room, woken me from my sleep, claimed that my father was engaging in a very strange affair, and forced me to fly all the way out to a beach far away.

I came to realize the bizarre turn of events that happened only moments ago when I started to feel cold. I looked at myself and realized I was wearing just a typical pair of pajamas, now rustling furiously in the wind. It was so strange, was I in bed, sleeping peacefully just a few minutes ago? 

Now I was airborne with Vegeta, hunting down my father who, supposedly, was having an affair with Bra. Life was strange indeed, but the question was, what was to come? Would more events make this night even more shocking? 

Regardless of which, I was happy to be near Vegeta. Sure, it could've meant coming face to face with the ugliest infidelity I could imagine happening to my close friends/family, but at least it was some sort of demented opportunity to be with him. Besides, nothing had happened yet, how did I know anything was going on at all?

Maybe they were, as Vegeta had so gingerly stated, just finger-painting.

I quelled the urge to laugh; I would've looked like a madwoman, laughing in the middle of a flight to see if her father was cheating on her mother. 

A sudden realization interrupted my thoughts. Could it be? I felt the flash of three ki signatures. They were closer than I thought.

"Is that them?" I questioned, halting in mid flight to hover in the skies. Vegeta stopped near me. 

I felt my father's ki right away, then Bra's, but the other was weaker. Was it… Bulma?

"What is Bulma doing there?"

A felt a twitch from the Saiyan prince. Vegeta's angered flared and he shot forward. I heard him growl through his teeth, "I've been deceived."

What was he implying, I wasn't quite sure. I shot forward after him, seeing in the distance the long stretch of the beach nearing. Soon, I could make out three specs, two near each other and one a little farther away. Who was who?

We neared and all I could make out was some black hair, and two blue-headed people. Not that it did me any good, it would take a much closer distance to determine which was Bulma and which was Bra.

Meanwhile, Vegeta dived forward much faster than me. If only he could tell me which was which so I could discover sooner. All this hectic confusion had made me so anxious to find out the truth. I was told all these astonishing statements and I had no idea which were true. Who was my father with, what were they doing, and why were they doing it in the first place? 

Vegeta made it to the sands, and he landed, his ki soaring dangerously high. If the ki went any higher, he might've gone Super Saiyan without any effort. He stopped once his feet touched the ground and said or did nothing. I was more eager to land now that he had seen who was who. 

The figures grew closer and closer and I started to make out the faces. Bulma and Bra looked so much alike, it was hard to tell. I squinted for Bra's large forehead and shorter hair and I spotted it right away.

Bra wasn't with my father.

            My eyes shot open against the incoming wind and I felt a wave of relief wash over me. My dad wasn't cheating on my mother with my friend, at least as far as I knew. I couldn't help but feel as if a weight had been lifted from me, even though I didn't have confirmation.

            When I landed, I saw Bulma near my father. Thankfully, they didn't have their hands held or anything, so at least the initial shock would subside soon. At least he wasn't a pedophile, I reminded myself. That just wasn't the father I knew.

            They were looking at us now, they had anticipated our arrival. Bra's face was twisted with worry, Bulma looked cool and collected, and my father was stern like his father in a serious moment. A rare moment, in other words, but sort of a look of Saiyan honor and dignity. 

            "Dad, what's going on?" I heard myself say, aggressively. Vegeta had his arms crossed, as usual, but said nothing.

            "Pan, I knew you would come. And I think it's time you knew." My heart began to pound and thunder like the waves behind us crashing into the moonlit sand. No, I didn't want to know. I expected this like he had expected me, and I just wished there was nothing to be said. I hated surprises. 

            "You and Bulma?" A moment of silence.

            "We're in love."

            No, no, no. I would ask him about him and then he would tell me that I was wrong and that it was all just a big mistake. No infidelity, no lies, just the way things were before…

            "And what about my mother? Then what? Are you in love enough to hurt someone who likes you so much, and to hurt me? No, this isn't true, this is just some sick joke!"

            "It's true, Pan, I'm so sorry. I didn't tell your mother because I didn't want to hurt her. That's why I didn't tell you."

            I felt my stomach turn and my throat tighten. "You kept a secret from me and my mother and you did all this just for Bulma?"

            Bulma didn't say something and neither did my father. I didn't expect Bra or Vegeta to say anything. "You wouldn't do that, no," I said, mostly to myself, "This isn't real. I'll just wake up and everything will be normal again. No midnight visits, no trips to beaches, no discoveries that your father's a fraud-"

            "Pan, please go easy on me. This isn't easy on anyone."

            "Then why is it happening? Why!" 

            "Your mother is a wonderful friend, but we don't belong together. Not like man and wife."

            "Are you trying to make me a bastard?" I exclaimed, "Oh, wait, I forgot, this isn't about me. I'm just some girl in the background."

            "Don't say that Pan! I love you very much, and I love your mother. But I also love Bulma-"

            "No! No! This drama just doesn't happen in the middle of the night on some stupid romantic beach! That's fiction! Not my dad and my boyfriend's mother."

            More silence.

            "Why did you bring her here, Dad? This was supposed to be our place! I knew you'd bring her here! Well, not her, but Bra-"

            "You thought I was with Bra?"

            "Oh what does it matter!" I said in frustration, "The point is, well, you betrayed me too! I'm your daughter, you aren't supposed to just forget about me because of some girl!"

            My words must've had an impact because there was more silence for quite some time. There was the sound of the waves, the unspoken messages in the air, but still it was silent. Things around me grew heavy and I didn't dare accept what I had just heard. I was just some child standing on the beach in her pajamas at 2:00 am and nothing was happening. I was the only person in the world and I loved it. No confusion, no drama, just me and an empty Chikyuu. 

            "I've wasted my time," Vegeta proclaimed, more bitter than snidely. Bra's jaw dropped. 

            "You wasted your time?" she proclaimed, saying something for the first time in the evening.

            "You heard me." 

            "Don't you even care that you wife is having an affair with Pan's father?"

            He turned to my father, and in so many words that just weren't there, he said, "You can keep the whore."

            I would've been shocked but I knew Vegeta all too well. He turned away coldly, eager to face the other way, and I could sense Bra's eyes welling with tears already.

            "That's my mother you're talking about! You can't just let this go on! You have to stop this!"

            "Jealous of your own mother? Pathetic!"

            Now this shocked me. Vegeta had just proposed that Bra had a crush on my father, which made sense. It did explain a lot and Vegeta had said it in such a serious tone, could it be true? Honestly, I didn't care anymore. All I cared about was being someone else, somewhere else. 

            Bra shared my shocked. "Jealous? This is Gohan we're talking about, he's old enough to be my father!"

            He gave an aristocratic scoff. "You speak of morals, but that certainly hasn't stopped your mother."

            Bulma's eyes widened. "Morals? Well how about you, never loving me and just abandoning me to your training? I may be guilty of an affair, but I have good reason no thanks to you!"

            My temper flared, but no one seemed to notice. "Warriors don't love," Vegeta snarled through his teeth, "and you knew that damn well. If you didn't like that, then you shouldn't have been with me in the first place. But of course, you had an affair instead. You had better be thankful that we didn't have an actual relationship or I would've snapped your delicate human neck for betraying me."

            My father put his arm protectively in front of Bulma. "Don't bring violence into this."

            "Why? Afraid I'll snap your neck as well? And with reason, all these months of loving someone else you shouldn't have made you soft…"

            Hearing the tormenting tone in Vegeta's voice made my anger snap. I couldn't take it anymore; blame being shifted when it was clear whose fault it was. Violence was being threatened, but not by the innocent hurt, but by the guilty to each other. It was ridiculous, wrong, and a clear avoidance of the real issue. Bulma and my father.

"Everyone, just shut up!" I yelled, and everyone turned towards me in shock, "The only people who have a right to complain or ague here are Bra and me. All the rest of you started this mess in some way or another, and I don't give a damn who did it more. All that matters is that everything is going straight to hell because two people decided that everything else was unimportant but them being together. And as romantic as that sounds, it's nothing but two people turning their backs on their families."

"She's right," Bra coincided, glaring at her mother. A silence settled over the forbidden couple. 

"Ah yes," Vegeta said sarcastically, "and I'm at fault for not coddling your mother like a human."

"If you had it in your heart to show her affection, she wouldn't have cheated on you," I said, "not that it excuses everyone's behavior here. There really aren't any excuses here."

"Any woman would've done it in my place," Bulma argued, "Do you know what it's like being married to that man?"

My eyes narrowed dangerously. "You took part in ruining my parent's marriage. Do you really think I care about why you did it?"

"Pan, don't blame her. This is really my fault for going through with it, but that doesn't change the fact that we love each other."

"I wish it did," Bra muttered, "I wish anything did."

"This coming from the little girl who has feelings for her father's enemy," Vegeta declared.

Bra's face melted into shock. "I do not like Gohan! You're just going crazy!"

"Bra, dear, you don't have to deny it. Even I know it's true," Bulma said.

"Pan, please help me out here," Bra said, appalled.

"I think people are purposely changing the subject. And you know what, I'm glad. I'm sick of this already and I wish with all of me that none of this happened, but I guess I can't change things. I'm disgusted, and there's no reason for me to stay here and listen to this constant blame." I turned around, infuriated. I had been waiting to leave once I found out my father loved Bulma. 

Bra looked frantically around and huffed in frustration. "You're leaving already?" she exclaimed.

"Pan, if you're leaving, you know you can't run away from this."

I glared at him. He took away what happiness I had left. How could he do this to me? Didn't he love his daughter? "Watch me," I retorted. 

Immediately, I powered up, an aura flaring around me. My father shook his head.

"Pan, don't do this, we aren't finished."

"Yes, we are. You know why? Because this should've never begun in the first place. I shouldn't have come here just to see two adults abandoning everything else and, by the way, being very childish."

"Childish?" Bulma snapped, "You're the one running away from things!"

"I'm just going some place where things make sense! Not here, nothing is understandable here." My ki soared, I clenched my fists, and soon it started to build up. The anger, the helplessness, everything crashing inside of me. I had to get away. I had to go somewhere where pain wasn't a daily occurrences, somewhere where I could heal.  

My ki rose to a point where I took off, my feet yanked from the ground and with great precision. I was suddenly airborne; with Saiyans flight was usually an instant thing. I felt the others watch me as I took off, rapidly leaving. Soon, I would be nothing but a spec in the horizon, my flight was that fact.

I barreled into the air higher and higher, and no one followed me. They let me go, but were probably shaking their heads in disgust as I flew off. I ran off in the middle of an argument, it probably seemed cowardly. Things were growing so painful I just didn't care whether or not I was a coward; I just wanted my problems to seem less real.

I looked down to where they were and now, they too were just specs. I would fly farther and farther away until they blended in with the Earth and were no more. Them and all my unresolved issues would blur away, too distant to be seen. No affairs, no deceptions, and no misconceptions. Only in a place so far away that things were almost unrecognizable.

I took off in the middle of the argument, flew off and tried to forget. I noticed the wind, the sky, the problems trailing behind me and the people down below. I noticed where I was taking myself, and I noticed that I was lonely and cold. 

What I didn't notice was that Vegeta followed me.

Even at that point I would've cared.


	4. Where the Wicked Perish

Harvest of the Soulless

By Poe

Chapter 4: Where the Wicked Perish

_"Why have I painted myself this color?_

_To be born just to die.  _

_Who will be the corpse in my grave?"_

            I saw below me a forest. I remembered that forest, it had narrowly escaped industrialization. Environmental groups had saved it, and despite Japan's conservative politics, the small patch of woods remained. I felt a connection to that forest, right now more than ever. Like the forest, I was caught in trouble that I had no hand in creating, but was near ruin. I decided to land in the woods, away from everyone else but never too far from civilization.

            The ground neared as I dove downward, pushing against the fierce winds that had risen from my rushed descent. It wasn't long before I passed the level of the treetops and was closing the gap between the earth and me. Branches whipped my face and the needles from the trees tried to dig into my skin. When the ground had come close enough to land, I slowed to a hover and gently touched the ground with my feet, slowly letting go of the ki that held me up. 

            I looked at the scenery around me and sat down. The forest was certainly not the bland, concrete cityscape I had grown accustomed to. It wasn't all that beautiful, but it was wilderness, which was exactly what I needed. No people, just trees and earth. Just me and no one else. 

            I thought about my father and Bulma and how Bra acted as though she liked my father. It was all I could think about; the issue was so present to me. The hands that were at the ground on the dirt balled into fists and tears welled up in my eyes. Damn them for turning their backs on me. Damn my father for making me believe he was a good person and then deceiving me in such a painfully unusual way. It seemed like punishment for being naive and thinking that my father was an exception to the rule that all men are jerks.

I blinked the tears away, trying to be strong. I was 18, I wasn't supposed to cry about problems that weren't my fault. But all of this was just too much. Bulma and my father? It wasn't right. Bulma I could imagine being unfaithful, but my father? Everything was becoming so unreal; life was fading into a beautiful dream gone wrong. Was this truth supposed to fit into my life like every other fact I've learned to cope with?

            More tears came and I cupped my face in my dirty hands and sobbed into them. I couldn't hold back, this was horrible. Happiness had left me just like in the dream. Thinking about the dream made me want to go back, so badly, to just yesterday before I went to sleep. A yesterday when I didn't care about anything but Vegeta, and if he liked me. 

I cried more, mostly because I wasn't used to crying. No matter how depressed I was, I didn't let myself be weak and cry. But now, everything had hit so fast and so near to me. My family and friends had abandoned me and each other. Was I supposed to live with this? How could I?

            I thought about what would happen in the future. My parents divorcing, my father marrying someone else, and, ultimately, my life falling to pieces. At least, what was left of it. I was still lost and broken from loving someone who didn't love me, and then another problem had hit me hard like an unexpected blow to the face.

            I was sitting there, in some forest in the middle of the urban sprawl, thinking that I could escape from this. In a way, just being away from the characters that had inspired so much sorrow in my life was good. This, however, could still not take away the pain. I didn't care how long I cried, it still felt like the pain would never go away. My own father and my boyfriend's mother had cursed me with more sorrow. Such deception, such betrayal. 

             I passed a bit of time with tears of anger streaming down my face. The trees above me would rustle as the wind sighed, the cold air stinging my face where the tears had been. I could hear the occasional passing car in the distance, and see some streetlights far off. I stared at the yellow lights, trying to feel as warm as the color. I tried to feel like I had meaning, just like the trees in the forest, the grass in a field, and the lamppost hanging in a coalmine. I tried to feel like I meant something; that if I died someone would care. I tried to ignore the blow to my self-esteem that came from my father completely abandoning my feelings, and all for just one woman. 

            And just as that thought crossed my mind, I felt a ki signature.

            It shot across me and I jerked out of my gloomy state as the ki signature passed across me. I sighed in exhaustion as I realized that it was Vegeta. What was he doing now and why was he there? 

            "Oh great, something else to bother me," I muttered. The ki was heading my way at a slow and steady pace. When I got to thinking about it, it wasn't that surprising to see that he had followed me. There must've been a logical explanation. But then again, I wasn't as curious as I usually am.

            "Vegeta, I should've known. Him and his midnight visits," I muttered, growing bitterer by the second. He obviously had waited to follow me, or else it would seem suspicious. I imagined what would've happened it he followed me right after I left; my father would probably stop him thinking he would hurt me. Hell, for all I knew he would. At this point, I couldn't care less.

            I stopped crying and stood up, searching out his figure. Even in my state I wasn't really all that disappointed to see him. He obviously wouldn't give me a lecture on respecting my parents no matter what. This was Vegeta, not my uncle. 

            I saw him approaching me from the skies and my fists tightened in anticipation. He took his sweet time landing, when was he ever in a hurry to see me? When he finally landed before me, I crossed my arms.

            "Well, what is it now?"

            The pine needles around him scattered, and dust lifted a bit as he landed, but started to settle once he was finished. He looked emotionless until I asked him my question in a menacing tone and his eyes narrowed. He didn't seem to notice that I wasn't surprised at his visit, and it wasn't much of a shocker to me either. 

            "You know little of the Saiyan race."

            I was brushing tears away from my face with the back of my hand, but I stopped when he said that. "My father's an asshole. What else do I need to know?"

            "That a Saiyan will never be satisfied by a member of another race. Physically, that is."

            I cringed. "You came here to say that? Why is this important?"

            He scoffed, his aristocratic face crumpling like a piece of paper. "It's essential to this entire, disgusting display of primal instinct."

            His comment confused me, but I ignored it. "Why are you talking about Saiyans only being satisfied by Saiyans when my father was with Bulma?"

            "It won't stay that way. The girl has an attraction towards him, it won't be long before he stops resisting her."

            He referred to Bra as "the girl". I wondered why he wouldn't say her name. "Bra likes my father? Just because he's Saiyan?"

            "Why else would she like him?" he said, scornfully.

"I don't know, that's what makes this so bizarre. So, basically, you're saying that they're going to end up with each other just because they're both Saiyan?"

            "Yes, without a doubt."

            "So he's going to abandon Bulma for Bra like he abandoned my mother?" All of this was very sudden and hard to believe. I kept hearing speculation and thought when what I needed was tangible proof. However, speculation would prove more useful than I would imagine. 

            "He's confusing his emotions for Bulma with the primal lust he has for the only Saiyan he can be with. That charming speech on how he loves her was nothing more than him loosing grip on his understandings of the Saiyan race."

            This was certainly a revelation for me. It explained why I felt so strongly about Vegeta, but it still didn't answer why I didn't like Trunks. 

            "This is insane. You're saying that my father's going to be attracted to Bra and that she likes him already, and that they're eventually going to end up together?"

            "You're catching on," he said, cynical as ever. I sat down in frustration, my back towards him.

            "I don't need this right now."

            "Spoiled brat, this is something you must know!" 

            "Why?"

            He loomed over me and glared. "You're more human than I thought."

I stood up and spun around, facing him with my hands planted on my hips. "Not to be repetitive or anything, but I don't think I believe you."

            "You don't want to believe it. You can convince yourself it's not true, but that isn't going to stop it from happening. Nothing can stop it but death." He seemed pretty certain of himself. 

            I sighed in frustration and said, "If you knew that Bra and my father were bound to happen, despite the fact that you saw him with Bulma and he declared his love for her, and nothing you or I or even him could do anything to stop it, then why did you become so angry all of a sudden? Why were you so desperate to find my father?"

            "I knew about his affair with my former mate, but I was convinced the brat had feelings for your uncle."

            "Wait, you though Bra liked Uncle Goten?"

            "She did at one point." 

            "How do you know this?"

            "The pest reminded me of it whenever I was angry at her. It was her way of wining an argument." His face grew colder as he spoke. 

            "And then she changed her mind and fell for my father? Is that what made you so angry?"

            "No, of course not," he started, ignoring my quizzical expression, "I don't give a damn who she chooses to have some schoolgirl infatuation with, I was infuriated because she was going to go through with it. She didn't manage to this time, but I came to a realization. She would, eventually. It didn't matter who it was, she would always feel an attraction towards a Saiyan over a human."

            "And what were to happen if they actually did get together? What part of Bra and my father did you have a problem with?"

            He grew angered. "He would spoil her!"

            "Spoil?"

            "Take her! Ruin her!"

            "Oh," I said, looking down at the floor.

            "I could not allow such an offense to the royal bloodline, even if it meant stopping an irrational teenager from following through with her emotions."

            I decided to throw out an unimportant question just out of curiosity. "Ok, I understand that part. But you said that a Saiyan always chooses a Saiyan over another species, why has my whole family chosen humans? And what would happen if the only Saiyans left were related to her?"

            "What do you think?" he snapped. The conversation was agitating him, but these things had to be said.

            "I don't know! You're the expert on Saiyan relationships!"

            "Your family is no exception to the rule. They have the same primal urges, just fail to recognize her. As for the ridiculous question on what would happen if the only Saiyans left were of relation to her, then she would have no choice but to be with that person. This is the way our population thrives, and it was supposed to keep out bloodline pure."

            With that logic, Vegeta would have to be attracted to my Grandfather. They were, at one point, the only Saiyans left. But probably, male-male relationships were an exception to the rule considering it was nature's way of keeping the population high. I didn't ask him about it, of course. 

"It makes sense, but it can't be true! Bra and my father? That's horrible!"

            "The truth seldom isn't when you're a warrior. Something I'm sure you'll never really understand."

            "Well then why don't I like Trunks?" I blurted out, and then quickly covered my mouth with my hand. How could I have said that? It was unrelated to the topic at hand, had it been weighing on my all that time?

            Vegeta smirked. "Why would you like a half-Saiyan when you have a full-Saiyan right in front of you?"

            Silence.

His words crushed me with so many emotions and questions. Did he know I liked him? Did he like me back? A sense of excitement shot through me. This could finally mean we could be together, even if it meant that Bra and my father would too. I decided to ask the questions I had waited to ask for so long.

            "Then I'm supposed to feel an attraction towards you? And likewise, you're supposed to be attracted towards me? Does that mean I can't be with anyone else but you? And you and Bulma, and Trunks and I, we're all finished with each other?" 

            He didn't answer me, but instead leisurely walked towards me. My eyes widened. He looked sinister, and he was walking towards me after I had asked if we were supposed to be together. 

            I was too scared to be happy.

            "Why aren't you answering my questions?"

            He continued approaching me, silent. Vegeta reached me, and then turned and headed so he was behind me, facing my back. Could it be? Was he going to make a move? I had been waiting for this for so long.

            Was he finally going to accept me?

            "Is this why you came?" I didn't turn around, I stood rigid and afraid. 

            His arms snaked around me and I inhaled sharply. I expected it, but shock still flooded me and I tensed up.

            "Neither of us can escape this, it was my duty to confront the issue."

            "You call this, 'confronting the issue'? That's sick, you know that?"

            I heard a sardonic chuckle from him. He pulled me closer and I felt my all my thoughts becoming drenched with the color of his eyes. He could feel my heart beat furiously; I was so shy around him. He was so much older, it bothered that he wasn't nervous around me like Trunks was. 

But it didn't matter. I was warm, not from heat, but from being near him. My loneliness was gone so fast, torn from me, and so much more was given to me. Holding me was Vegeta, something I could finally take for granted. 

            "So this was your plan? To come out here in the woods and seduce me?"

            "I wouldn't use that wording, but yes," he said, slyly.

            "Did you think to consider that I might not like this?"  

"Are you afraid, little girl?" Vegeta whispered harshly in my ear, his arm crushing my back to his chest. The hold he had on me was one of sheer male dominance, no romance. Had I been a human, I wouldn't have been able to breath. I tried to struggle, but I couldn't lie about how comfortable it was. I gave a half-hearted attempt to free myself and then gave up, I couldn't leave it. 

            "Of course I'm not afraid." I gathered my courage. I felt his tongue run up the nape of my neck and a chill shot through me. 

            "You even taste young," he said with a tone saturated with lust. I shuddered, and new feelings welled up in me that I felt I could not control.

            "I can't do this!" I blurted out, feigning more struggle. "I can't stop thinking about how horrible it is that Bra is going to be with my father. I can't just start a relationship with you."

            "You can't?" he said, running his thumb across my jaw, "And yet you're so full of want. You need me right now, that you can't deny."

            He saw inside to my soul, how could he do that? "This is all too much for me." 

What was he doing to me? I hated not knowing his intentions. Was he just using me or taking me seriously? I decided to make it clear.

            "I'm not your toy," I said when he didn't let go of me. He snickered. 

            "Scared I'll do what I want with you?"

            "Not scared. Just not looking forward to it."

            "Lying is a bad thing," he said tauntingly, dragging his fingers across my waist. More shivers and adrenaline coursed through me. Would I be a woman to need this? Could he make me one? 

            A part of me wanted to scream. I meant nothing to him, and there was nothing he could give me that I needed. I was just his pawn, his plaything that he would use to his liking. And yet, like he said, I needed him so much. I would be crushed if I had to leave him, even though I was still shaken up about Bra and my father.

            Still there was something I wanted from him. Something beyond the physical realm, something beyond just excitement and thrills.  

            Love.

            I wanted love.

            A part of me collapsed. I could have him now, with instinct as an excuse. If I gave in to him, I would lose so little and gain so much more. I would be with him, even if it meant giving up my pride and giving in to my emotions. My pride started to deteriorate at the thought of him and I together. 

            I'd do anything for him. 

I forced myself to turn around, and at first he wouldn't let me. After he realized what I was doing, he loosened his grip. I squirmed a bit into place before I faced him, pressing against his iron chest, my hands trapped between us. I looked up at him, trying not to be shy, but I'm sure my coyness reflected in my eyes. 

            He had beautiful eyes, at least to me. They swallowed light and seeped into me, branding an image on my soul. While others would say they were just black, they were so much more to me. They would mean more to me than anyone else could imagine. I was so near every part of him, and that was so wonderful to me.

            I fit in his arms. 

I felt something seep into me that took over and turned my pain-ridden thoughts of Bra and my father to dust. Here was my escape from the pain, just indulgence and comfort. He could make me forget about me wanting him, about how I hurt Trunks by not loving me, about how my father betrayed me. He could make me happy, if just for one second, as I had wanted to be for so long. Even though things had gone straight to hell with this whole Bra/Bulma scandal, he could be my fleeting mirage of paradise. 

My hands found themselves to the back of his neck, and entwined, locked myself around him. He stared at me mostly emotionless but with a hint of shock, but I could tell he would know what I was about to do. I could've been worried he would refuse me, but I wasn't. I wasn't thinking, just feeling. I had to be forward to get what I wanted, so I had to do what I wanted. 

            No more pain, just us together. I knew it was wrong, but if I were to perish, I would want nothing more to perish with him. 

            I tugged gently on him, bringing his head closer so I could kiss him. He didn't hesitate, as I thought he might, but dove in. In one sweeping movement, his lips were inches from mine. My breath heaved in anticipation against his chest, feeding his ego. So much so that before he kissed me, he stopped.

            "I won't stop. Is this what you want?"

            Him and I together.

            No distance, no barriers, just us and all the happiness I could contain. 

            Him and I together.

            I didn't answer with words. Instead, I tilted my head a bit forwards until out lips finally met.

            It was all I could ever want. 


	5. All the Chaos Within

Harvest of the Soulless

By Poe

Chapter Five: All the Chaos Within 

_"The stars,_

_Can't you see how bright they are?_

_I shout to the skies,_

_And everyone can feel my joy._

_Rags of elation are bound to my soul,_

_Life is falling out of its shell,_

_I can do nothing but be happy._

_Will you be happy with me?"_

            I kissed him and he held me as though he was hungry for me. I loved Vegeta; I loved every part of him and every flaw. Parts of me screamed for me to stop, I could not love him, it was forbidden. I could not continue this; it would only cause me pain. I would wake up and he would've consumed me and then for months I would be wracked with guilt and obsession. What if I became pregnant? I had to think about the consequences of my actions, but all I thought of was him. 

            But I had waited to long for this. Trunks had never kissed me like that, Vegeta was so lonely and desired somebody else so much, he made me loose my inhibitions and forget what my parents had warned me about. But, truly, I was the lonely one. Perhaps if I had loved Trunks the way I loved Vegeta, this would've happened as well.

            I forgot about Bra, Bulma, and my father. I forgot about the shock of seeing them together. I forgot about how angry I was, an anger that had stemmed from hurt. In fact, I forgot about pain. Us, together, was so sudden it stole my unhappiness and helplessness and gave me a different sort of fragility. It did give me so much more, although in the process I did not look to see what it was steeling away.

            The past few days became a blur. The Briefs family was just Vegeta, and I was someone else. No one had broken into my room, no one had told me something only for me to discover something else as shocking. No one had torn my father's marriage to pieces. I couldn't deceiver events from a day that was once a day, but now was just a blur. To me, none of it existed.

            It was strange how just one incident could make me forget about everything. Just a kiss and all of a sudden, I had no more problems. I wasn't depressed, I wasn't lonely, I had everything I could have. I loved Vegeta that much. There was just one line, one moment of time passing, and all of a sudden I was the happiest girl who ever lived. And looking back on the months in which I thought I was dead, I realized I was only waiting.

            Now, finally, I was alive.

            I was born and I had to have it all. I took Vegeta and made him mine, and devoured him like he devoured me. I didn't think about his little speech on instinct and how that was the only reason why we were together, I believed in much more than that. I believed we were meant for each other, and that even though it felt so wrong that we were progressing so fast, that it was all right.

            And yet, only moments ago I discovered something that should've made my world fall apart. I should've been broken and unable to do anything but cry. And admittedly, I was at first when the news finally hit me. But now I didn't care. Not now, with my love manifesting, finally in physical form. No longer just a dream, no longer just a poem on paper. Now it was us together, it was everything it should be.

            He made me forget about the disaster that happened only moments ago. He intoxicated me, he filled me with more want and love than I could've had even in my loneliest moments without me. Everything was happening at once, things I normally avoided and stayed away from with Trunks, but now I embraced. He made me forget about Trunks and how I was still committed to him, but instead made me throw away my fidelity as my father had done with Bulma. He made me commit a hypocritical and dirty act and he made me want to. 

            He said he wouldn't stop, and he didn't. I didn't want him to, because I was no longer me. I was the girl who loved Vegeta, not the girl who was dating Trunks. I wasn't the girl whose father was cheating on her mother with her boyfriend's mother, and I wasn't the girl whose best friend had a crush on her father. I wanted to be a woman all over again, as I had wanted so much before. 

            I'll admit that the age difference scared me. I felt like a little girl with him, and he was so much of a man. He was raw, seemingly unfettered, and fearless. I wanted to be courageous and mature, but instead I was just the opposite. I wasn't 18, a legal adult, I was back at 14. I was back to the time when I didn't know anything about male-female relations in general and when I had a girlish crush on someone I thought I could never have. Only now it was Vegeta instead of Trunks. But this moment was all about leaving past identities behind. It was about becoming someone else.

            It wasn't about inhibitions.

            It was about revenge and need, and getting lost in the moment. It was us and no one else except the people at the back of our mind. The people we left behind. I knew damn well he was using me for instinct reasons and to get back at Bulma. And I was using him as well. He knew this, and he might've even cared. But it didn't matter. It was him and I and all the chaos within, and that was all.

            We left everything and forgot about the world, and for that there were consequences. We knew it, but we ignored it. Instead, he pushed me to the floor. 

            He gave me something to remember.

Everything had to end, and it ended with the sunrise. I felt that nagging guilt seep in and I ignored it. I knew I shouldn't have done what I did before I did it; what was the point of regretting it? For now, I had to go back to where I belonged. But it would be hard, knowing my father would be their waiting for me.

Unfortunatly, things fully deteriorated once I arrived home. The house was shaded, a somber object in the distance. I approached it and thought about what I had left behind. I felt like someone else that entire day; with events happening to me that weren't supposed to. My father, Bra, Bulma, and most importantly, Vegeta, all turned me into a girl I never knew. Betrayal, hurt, anger, and everything else I could stomach before being unable to feel ever again. I was a puppet for my emotions, operating on hate and disgust and seeking what we all do.

Comfort.

No, nothing had happened. I was the same. This was just a dream, with meaningless events that would only cause me pain in reality. All of this was unimportant and I would open the door and be told that it was just a… misunderstanding? 

I shook my head as I continued to approach the door. Hadn't I only told myself that earlier the same thing, only to find my worst fears come true? This was true. I was different than I had been yesterday, because my father had been a jerk and I had turned to Vegeta, thinking he could make me happy. I did it, I committed myself to him and gave him everything I had and received little or nothing in return. Vegeta didn't love me, my father didn't love me, and no matter how much I tried to convince myself it wasn't true, I was alone. A loneliness possessed me that Trunks or anyone else could not cure.

There was no one in the world but me.

The sun was rising and it cast its rays over the earth, but my house remained a bulky shadow obstructing the horizon. I was at the door now; my arm was raised to knock on the door. It just felt like the right thing to do, even though my parents could detect ki. I knocked, and words entered my head. Vegeta's words. The sound of my fist against the wood made me thing of him because it was solid and cold, covered in shadow. A strange thing, but I was strange, so it made sense to me. 

"You're not bad for a little girl," he had said. My heart hadn't shattered, because I was already broken. He had said this with such lechery in his voice, he was more perverse than I had imagined. I didn't respond, of course, only glared. This was how he repaid me. After I gave him a piece of me, he treated it as though it was something common and filthy. In the end, however, he was right.

I was just a little girl…

My father opened the door at once and I jumped a little. I was lost in my thoughts and I had forgotten why I had gone there. I looked at him, with his worried eyes and arm gripping the door with enough restraint so as not to tear it off the frame. There was no guilt in him, not a trace of it was evident in his eyes. I felt my own form a glare as I remembered why I had bothered to come home.

"Pan, where were you? Why were you with Vegeta?"

"What? No 'hello' or 'good morning'?" I said sarcastically.

"What were you doing with Vegeta?"

"Him and I had a little talk," I said coldly.

"Is this about Bulma and I?"

"Bulma? You're still wound up about that whore? I can assure you, you won't be for long."

"Pan," he said, removing his hand from the door to grip my arm, "Don't call her that. And why don't you believe that what we have is forever?"

"Have you loved her since you were a little boy? Has she been your obsession?"

He frowned. "I don't see what that has to do with anything, but yes, I have loved her for a long time."

"Vegeta explained to me something very interesting."

"Oh, so you were **talking.**"

My glare deepened and I stepped inside. I wondered how he could no me so well, but I was determined to not let it show. "I'm tired, and I'm not going to engage in any pointless conversation. I'm going to go upstairs and sleep."

His grip on my arm tightened. "Pan, why are you always running away from things? We're not finished and you've brought up something very disturbing."

"What? Your affair with Bulma? Have you even told mother yet?"

He let go of my arm and looked helpless. "I plan to; you know that much about me. I hate being dishonest, but I love Bulma too much to stay away from her."

"Why do you make it sound like everything you do is so justified and perfect? You cheated on my mother, and you don't love Bulma! You only think you do, and you're wrong."

"You keep saying that I don't love Bulma. Don't you think that's denial?" 

I scoffed and walked towards the stairs. "You know less than you think you do."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he said, genuinely confused, "And come back here, I haven't finished talking with you."

I spun around, arms planted on my hips. "How much do you like Bra?"

"Bra?" 

"Yes, Bra. How much do you like her?"

"She's a child!"

"Do you think she's pretty?"

"I'm old enough to be her father!"

"Do you think she's attractive?"

"Why are you asking me this? Does this have something to do with her saying she liked me?"

I shook my head. "No."

"Then what does it have to do with? Why these questions?"

"Trust me, you wouldn't understand." I turned around again. I could almost see the look of frustration on his face. I ignored him and didn't reflect on the brief but informative conversation we had just had. Instead, I wondered how we hadn't woken up my mother. In some ways, I wish she had woken up and run down, asking what was going on. Then I could betray my father like he betrayed me. 

I walked up the stairs and wished I couldn't think or feel ever again. I wished I was just something emotionless, something like Vegeta had always wanted to be. I never wanted to feel pain even if it meant the capacity to feel happiness. Why? Because I thought I could never be happy. I was hopelessly lost and there was no one I could find to guide my way.

Not even Vegeta could help me now.

Not now, not ever.

  
    


	6. When No One Else Will

Harvest of the Soulless

By Poe

Chapter 6: When No One Else Will

_"I remembered only_

_ the pieces of me you threw away._

_I will be remembered as conquered_

_As tamed_

_And there is nothing left in me to kill."_

            I went to my bed and threw myself on it. I landed onto the mattress, the bed frame creaking with my weight. I fell into a sea of anguish; water crashing into me at all ends. There were so many problems, and in trying to deal with them, I had created so much more. I knew I shouldn't have turned to Vegeta for comfort, I shouldn't have run away, and I certainly shouldn't have come to my room instead of talking it over with my father.

            Hot tears streamed down my face and I bunched up the covers in clenched fists. So much pain was raw in me, eating away every moment. Guilt was present in me more than ever, and I had a talent for making problems seem like they were all my fault. Vegeta was my fault, that was for certain. Turning to him to heal my pain was one of the biggest mistakes I could've made. What if I was pregnant? Did he have any gross, alien diseases he picked up from his lonely travels across space?

            Truthfully, those were the least of my worries. I was in too much pain to worry about other things, especially the problems that were actually my fault. I had to solve the problem of my father and Bulma, a problem I needed to confront. There I was, running away from everything, and engaging in dangerous and hurtful acts to rid my pain. It was so childish, and the more I sat on that bed and whined about it, the more childish it would become.

            But before I went straight back down to confront my father once more, I remembered something interesting. My tears had stopped only moments ago, so I sat up and brushed them away briskly. This seemed important, perhaps I had to think about it. When we first met up in the forest, Vegeta had mentioned something about Saiyan instinct. He said that a Saiyan would always chose a Saiyan before another race to have children with in order to keep the blood pure. He called it instinct, but it sounded like honor. My grandfather had been pretty happy with my grandmother, was Vegeta saying that their relationship was defying the nature of the Saiyan species? This meant that Trunks and Vegeta would unavoidably be drawn to me, and my uncle and father drawn to Bra? It made sense, and yet it sounded so much like an excuse. 

            It did, however, explain why I liked Trunks. The reason I stopped liking him could be that I found Vegeta as a possible relationship and then liked him far more because his blood was purer. Still, it sounded like Vegeta was just using that to get me into bed. But why would he choose me, "a little girl", to take advantage of? And this theory sounded like it had scientific backing.   

            I could ask Bulma or Trunks about it, but it wasn't as though I was too enthusiastic about seeing them. They were caught in the spiral of my problems, unbeknownst to Trunks, and I wasn't keen on confronting issues. I was perfectly happy running away from the world, and turning to solutions just wasn't on my repertoire. 

            Unfortunately, I had to talk to my father. There were many things I "had to" do, but this one was affecting me as I thought of this. It was a brittle, nagging pain that would continue unless I spoke to him. My father had wounded and shocked me and all I had done was deny it and run away, and this bothered me. Sure, it had only been that morning that all of this had happened, but I hadn't done my well-earned yelling spree at him. Arguing with him would be a relieving thing, I realized.

            I hoisted myself so my legs were dangling off the edge of the bed. My eyes wandered across the paintings I had done in my depression, lacking in talent but strong in emotion. So much pain, and now things were hitting at once. Could the end be near? If I forgave my father and moved on, which wouldn't be any time soon, and actually had a relationship with Vegeta, which was unlikely but possible, could the depression finally be gone? 

            As usual, I was thinking too far ahead. I was still angry and charged for an argument with my father. My feet landed on the floor and my fists tightened. I was going to give my father a piece of my mind for the piece of my happiness he stole away. If he was going to defy me and do whatever he wanted, he was toying with the wrong girl. By being my father he had sworn a silent oath, and part of that oath was not to turn his back on my mother. 

            I stormed over to the door, put my hand on the cold doorknob, and swung it open so hard it nearly broke off its hinges. He had hurt my mother and I and it didn't matter if he was my father or not. I wasn't going to put up with it. The sadness I had felt only a minute ago had all turned to anger and rage, directed to so many things but mostly my father. 

            Facing the hallway in front of me, I started forward and then made a left at the stairs. I saw my father at the bottom of the stairs, and stopped to catch the expression on his face. Pensive, distraught, all the things I expected him to be. He had noticed me, but he didn't look. He was shamed. 

Good, I thought, let him die in his shame.

            "What were you thinking?" I said, anger evident in my voice. He saw it coming. He knew I would race up the stairs, engage in a brief inner conflict, and then come straight back down to confront him. He was my father; he knew me too well.

            "You slept with Vegeta, didn't you?" he said, still not looking at me.

            "What?" I exclaimed, shocked that he had seen through me, "How can you ask me that?"

            My question was answered, even though it was rhetorical. "Because I care about you, Pan," he said, turning around to face me, "The fact that I love Bulma doesn't change that. I know you're hurt, you have every reason to be, and it hurts me too because you're my daughter."

            "I'm your daughter? Well maybe you should've considered me our **your wife** before you went out and got together with my boyfriend's **mother**! If you really love and care for me like you should, than you wouldn't have done something as sick as you did! And maybe, if you cared about me, you would've realized that I've been depressed for the longest time."

            "I knew that you were depressed Pan, I just didn't know what to do," he confessed.

            "Oh, and I suppose having an affair on my mother would solve that problem."

            "I told you, I love Bulma."

            "Don't say that!" I shouted, enraged, "You can't tell me one thing so I can here someone I trust say something else. Who the hell am I supposed to believe?"

            Confusion spread on his face. "What are you talking about?"  
            "Vegeta told me that your instinct says that a Saiyan will always chose another Saiyan over a human. You aren't happy with my mother because she isn't Saiyan, and you only think that being with Bulma will solve that."

            His confusion turned to horror. "Vegeta told you this?"

            "Yes."

            "And who does that mean I'm supposed to be with? Bra?"

            "Theoretically…" 

            "Pan, do you actually believe him?"

            "You've obviously proved how perverted you are, so what difference does it make if you are with Bra?" 

            "She's a child!" he exclaimed, frustrated.

            "And I'm a child, and Vegeta sure seemed to want me."

            "Vegeta just told that story to you so you could sleep with him, do you really trust that man?"

            My eyes narrowed. "I don't know who to trust. And anyway, it makes sense."

            "Why?"

            "Because I liked Trunks, and then I liked Vegeta. He's so much older than me, I always have crushes on **normal** guys. And my feelings were so strong… Oh, never mind, it's not like you'll understand."

            "You grew up with Trunks, and Vegeta, well, he was there. You're probably just confusing your feelings with something else."

            I crossed my arms across my chest. "I love Vegeta."

            He stopped, and looked me up and down. I wondered why I was confessing everything to him now, and so soon. "You love him?"

            "Do you believe me?"

            He sighed. "It's possible."

            "Whatever happened to 'you're just a child', or 'you do know what love is'?"

            "Because I found love and it's different than anything I expected it to be. Who knows, you might really love him."

            "He doesn't love me, what does it matter?"

            "If you knew he didn't love you, then why did you sleep with him?"

            "I never said I did!"

            "Don't lie, Pan."

            "Lie? You don't want me to lie? What have you been doing for the past few months? You're not exactly Mr. Honesty either, you know."

            He sighed and sat down again. "So you did sleep with him."

            "Fine, yes, I did! In the forest after I left and he followed me! No protection, nothing. I just went for it because you hurt me, and I trusted you. I thought you were innocent and I was strange because I was depressed and you were happy. But you aren't happy are you? You're just as miserable as me. And Bulma, no matter how much you think she loves you, can't change that. You're stuck being unhappy until you at least apologize for doing what you did to me."

            My father looked at me with fearful and shocked eyes. "You won't do it again, will you?"

            "You're missing the point! And damnit, you keep changing the subject!"

            "Please tell me you won't do it again."

A glare cast over my face, a shadow. I feel the glare pour over inside to darken my dreams and sicken me to the core. Yes, I finally understood what it meant.

Family loves you when no one else will.

"I'll do what I want to and you can't stop me. That's just the kind of attitude you had with Bulma, and I learn from the best. If you really hate me being with Vegeta, then you can stop hurting me and see what happens."

I was ready to storm out the door. It hadn't even been five minutes and already I was so angry.  My father grabbed my arm, predicting I would. I suppose he was used to seeing me try to run away.

"You act like Bulma and I are a mistake, but we're not. I'm sorry it hurts you, I really am, but I can't say that I shouldn't have been with Bulma."

"And what about Vegeta and I? Is that a mistake?" I exclaimed, jerking my arm away.

"Yes, of course! He gave you this lecture about Saiyan "instinct" to try to get you in bed with him and you think your relationship with him means something?"

"No!" I yelled, tears that were meaning to escape finally flooding my eyes, "Guys do that to beautiful girls, and I'm just a tomboy. I thought I was wrong for liking him, I thought he only like really attractive girls, but he made everything seem right and…"

"You don't think you're beautiful?" My father said, in a bit of shock. I glared at him.

"What does it matter, anyway?"

"It matters to you! You slept with Vegeta because of it!"

"There's more to it than just that!" I exclaimed.

"Do you realize what danger you've put yourself in?"

"I don't care! I hate living, what do I care if I get some disease or…"

"Become pregnant? What about then?" he said, concern thick in his voice.

I rolled my eyes. "I don't have a problem with abortion if the baby's really young, not even a baby."

"Pan, **you're** young. You shouldn't be doing this."

"And **you're** married! I can't listen to this, you're being a hypocrite!"

He put his hands up. "I can't control everything you do, I know that. Just please use protection…"

"Aren't you following? It's not going to happen again. Vegeta probably thought of me as just some one-night stand and I don't know why you're making a big deal out of this. The big deal is you and Bulma, something that's ruining my already messed-up life."

His face fell. "I didn't know it affected you that much. I knew it would hurt you, but I thought that you would be ok."

"How could you say that? Don't you see what you're doing to me?"

"Pan…" he said, touching my shoulder with that fallen look lingering on his face.

"Don't. Just don't try to play victim, don't even act like it."

"I wasn't, I'm worried about you," he said, sincerely.

"I don't care. You're supposed to be there for me, not betray me and then be surprised when I just don't bounce right back." I turned away, trying to hide the tears that had reformed in my eyes. The walls began to blur as I thought of all the horror I had endured at his expense.

He didn't say anything, and I was glad. Talking to him surfaced so much pain; I wanted to run back to my room and cry. I stood firm, waiting for the moment when I could leave without it seeming like I was running away from him. I was, but I didn't care anymore. I was thinking so many negative things about myself, just one more thing…

"Do you really love him?" he said, and it caught me by surprise.

"What?"

"Vegeta. Do you love him?"

"Why are you changing the subject?"

He sighed. "I want to know."

"I… I think so. Unless his whole theory thing is right."

"Theory? Oh, that. 'Instinct', you called it."

"He called it."

My father shook his head in frustration. He sighed, scratched behind his head absent-mindedly, the whole time I stared at him in confusion. He really didn't believe me, did he? 

"You've been dying to go to your room this whole conversation, haven't you?"

"What? No! And why do you keep changing the subject?"

He laughed. "Go ahead, go to your room. I don't think we're getting anywhere anymore."

"I don't want to, I want to talk!" I lied, crossing my arms. How did he know me so well?

My father laughed again and ruffled my hair. "Pan, you can go."

"Hey!" I said at his hair ruffling, "I'm mad at you, you can't treat me like a child!"

He put up his hands. "Fine, fine. You're not a child," he said, more just to stop me from arguing with him, "But look. I'm sorry for hurting you. I care about you, ok?"

"And I'm supposed to forgive you? Just like that?" He shrugged.

"Your uncle has."

"Uncle Goten would forgive you for anything in a second!"

"And you're my daughter. What happened to all the mercy genes?"

"Can't you ever be serious? Two seconds ago we were arguing, and now you're making jokes?"

"Come on Panny, lighten up!" he said, smiling.

I let out a frustrated groan and rolled my eyes. "You lecture me on Vegeta, tell me you and Bulma aren't a mistake, and then to lighten up? You don't honestly expect me to do what you say, do you?"

He shrugged again. "I guess not. Although I imagined Videl would have an obedient kid…"

"Obedient? Don't get me started!"

My father laughed. "I've learned that years ago, believe me."

I opened my mouth to say something, but stopped when I caught sight of the shine in his eyes that always showed up when he started to laugh. I was supposed to be mad at him, and yet I was such a flawed person I could hardly complain. I was angry, to say the least, but sometimes I just couldn't find it in me. He was just like a child sometimes, innocent and trusting.

I remembered years ago, all the fun we would have together. The trips to the beach were just some of them. He was always spoiling me, much to my mother's dismay, and my father was my comfort whenever I had some trivial childhood dilemma or problem. 

And now he was the source of some of my problems, and the root of others. Things were becoming easier to believe, but this was one of the harder ones. How could my father, someone I loved dearly, become my enemy so quickly? He used to be there for me, I would come running to him to cry and confess my problems, but now it was he I was running away from. My father had become someone I never knew before, and had turned me into someone else as well. Had he simply fallen prey to Bulma's "charms" that had originally captured Vegeta, or was this a hidden him he had never shown to me before? Was there someone else under that innocent exterior?

We all have dark secrets, I suppose. That's why you can't trust anyone, and often times you find it hard to trust yourself. But could these mistakes, so deep and inflicting, be forgiven? Was that the answer, or should I seek retribution? Mercy and vengeance… two things that were so different, they could be confused as the same. Would one of these things prove to be some kind of answer to a question, or maybe all of them?

I looked at my father's smile and sighed.

I could only wait.


	7. Change

Harvest of the Soulless

By Poe

Chapter Seven: 

Change

_"Under this November sky_

_I feel a world turn._

_You and I are just a dream_

_Just a fallen dream._

_Here and now, tears transgress me back to times,_

_Where a dream made a widow of me."_

That night, I lay alone, curled up in my bed. Thanks to the broken window that I had neglected to mention to my father, the room was frigid and unwelcoming. I decided against using ki to keep me warm, and instead pulled on a few extra layers and curled up into a ball. The night breeze was actually refreshing once I had warmed up, and being able to look up at the night sky without having a slab of glass to shield it was surprisingly pleasant.

I sighed, unable to sleep. I had stared longingly out my window since I first went to bed, but it had not kept me from staying awake. Lying there, I had thought of many things that had probably not aided me in sleep. I wondered if Vegeta was right about "Saiyan instinct", if Bra and Bulma's feelings were fueled my some aspect of Saiyan nature. If not, what were they thinking? Why my father and why was this all happening at once?

And what was I to do about Trunks? The only logical explanation for his feelings would be instinct, the age difference was absurd. So, in addition to my cheating on him, it would make sense to break up with him because he only liked me for instinct. But with that in mind, then what was the point of being with Vegeta? And was this Saiyan instinct theory just a lie as my father would have me believe?

I wondered about a lot of things, it seemed yesterday was a day of question. Uncertainty and doubt were becoming a part of my life. Things I had known for so long had come into question, like my father's innocence and Vegeta's feelings for me. I even became a suspect of myself, I felt as though I was a different person than I was two days ago. How could things be changing and falling apart so suddenly? I thought I had a grip on my life, and that even when it was terrible I could reassure myself that everything was in control. Then, when things happened that were no fault of mine that hurt me, I felt myself overwhelmed with despair.

Nothing seemed to make sense but the hate that lay warm inside, ready to explode.

I shuddered as a particularly strong wind blew in and eddied around my small room. It was rather ridiculous to sleep in a room with no window; this was Japan, not medieval France. I liked to be uncivilized once in a while, but I had to admit that the conditions were absurd.

            I shifted to the side, trying to find space to be comfortable. Something was steeling away my ability to sleep, and I couldn't understand what it was. Was I apprehensive? Yes, this was clear, but about what? Since so much had happened, it would be expected of a normal person to have trouble sleeping. But I wasn't like that. Problems did not disrupt any sleeping patterns for me, unless that problem was nervousness. 

            Then, in an instant, I realized what it was.

            I felt a flash of a ki signature, sudden and without alert. It was Vegeta, I knew it. I was shocked, but in a way I had known he would come all along, that was why I couldn't sleep. I had a connection with him, the Saiyan so different from me, and I could tell that he would visit me. Even if I couldn't realize it.

            But what were his intentions? And why was he coming now?

            I sat up in anxiousness and noticed my pulse had quickened. Vegeta. He was there, and he was coming for me. It was hard to believe, even though part of me had expected it. I was thrilled and at the same time fearful of what was to come. I didn't know why he was coming, even if I thought I did, there was still uncertainty. 

            I had to just ignore my shock and excitement and wait for him to come. I would ask questions, hope he would answer, and in the end either get something useful out of it or not. That was the way interactions between Vegeta always had to be; straightforward and secretly complex. Exactly the words I could use to describe him.

            I wrung the blankets I had captured in my grasp, anticipating him. It seemed it would be hours before I would see him, even though I had felt his ki signature heading towards me only moments ago. It was torturous waiting to ask questions, but more importantly, to see him. 

            I brushed some hair from my face, suddenly aware of my appearances. I was acting as timid as a schoolgirl, something I had never really been. I was too much of a tomboy for the short skirts they made us wear, but it seemed that now all the femininity was catching up to me. I even snuck a glance in the mirror to make sure I looked all right, but it only worsened things. 

            Who was I kidding? Either he liked me for who I was, or he never would. And this was Vegeta, did I really want him to like me? I hated obsessing over something, reaching for someone who always seemed out of my grasp. What others would call "the wonders of falling in love"; I would refer to simply as horror. I was forced to depend on him for so much emotional comfort; exactly what he could not give me.

            Finally, Vegeta was nearing to the point that he would arrive in seconds. I grew more and more nervous, and grew angry at myself for being nervous about him in the first place. And before I could think another thought, he was there in my room. 

            He flew in through the window, at first what seemed like a blur. With amazing precision, he stopped at once, hovering in the air with the force of his ki stirring everything in the room. I stared at him in shock, he was right in front of me. There was so much I needed to ask him and I needed to be with him with all of my being. Only one day away from him and I couldn't wait to see him again; he had fulfilled my loneliness and I loved it.

            My heart thundered as I looked at the moonlight on his face, a face of such bitter resentment and yet so handsome. I clutched the sheets tightly, frozen with shock. The questions remained in the anarchy of his entrance. What was going on? What was he doing here?

            "Vegeta, what is it now?" I asked with no resentment in my voice, then remembered quickly why he had come last time and added, "is it my father again?"

            A fierce wind found its way in and stirred things in the room as Vegeta's ki had. His face grew slightly colder and he leaned over. Curious to see what he would do, I leaned forward. His hands pressed against the comforter and he crawled leisurely on top of the bed, Vegeta's eyes intent on mine the whole time.

            "The same twisted affair he's been engaging in for months." I paused in thought. It felt as though he was hiding something from me.  

            "Why have you come, then?" I said, still grasping the blankets despite my usual stubborn bravery.

            He smirked and stopped, seating himself facing me. He was off to the side, closer to the window, and his face grew dark with shadows. "Why do you think?"

            I felt a lump grow in my throat. "Why now?"

            "Why not?"

            I remembered something and anger stirred in me. "What if I don't want you here?"

            He twitched and then let out a laugh. "You've had me once, am I to believe you will not have it again?"

            "I don't want to get pregnant," I blurted out. I regretted saying that, if I had stated that he should leave because I didn't want him, he would not find a way around it. He could always find away around my physical excuses.

            I saw him hold a small square-shaped package in between two of his fingers. I saw it and sighed, hoping to conceal the blush that had creped over my cheeks. 

            "You're awfully forward," I said, adding, "And don't think that's going to solve everything. There are other reasons that I can't be with you, you know."

            "Are there?" he said, rhetorically. His hand touched the back of my neck, a gesture devoid of hesitation. I grew uncomfortable. 

            "Of course! And you know that!" I said, about to cross my arms. 

            "It's a pity I don't care," he said, his voice low and thick with a feral lust. Then, before I could think, he pulled me towards him. I was suddenly in his arms, and he was kissing me and flooding me with excitement. His hand was now buried in my hair, and mine were trapped in between us. Memories of our first time together hit me as felt his iron chest and the heat radiating from him. He was so warm, a sign of great power. A small bit of his ki was being released in heat form, so his power literally emanated from him.  

But I had to pull away; it was too sudden. It didn't matter that I didn't care about just how sudden it was, pulling away from him was the proper thing to do. So my hands found themselves to his shoulders and I pushed. He felt the gesture and stopped at once, tearing his lips from mine.

"I can't, I just can't," I said, avoiding his gaze. 

"And why the fuck not?" he asked, irritated that I rejected him. 

"It's just too soon. And those things break, and if I get pregnant, then what?"

"Then you should be honored to have a Saiyan child, and you should be honored that I came here in the first place," he responded, pointedly.

I felt some anger provoked in me. "Maybe I shouldn't say why I can't be with you, maybe I should be asking why I should in the first place."

His posture stiffened with anger. "I don't need to answer that, you know perfectly well why."

"So I can be used and thrown away?" 

"If I wanted a girl to prostitute herself to me tonight, I would've turned to a whore like Bulma."

I realized that it was the first time I had heard him say her name, but dismissed it. "You treat me like a whore, what difference is there between Bulma and I?"

Frustration spread across Vegeta's face. "You were a virgin! It certainly is a difficult task to treat a virgin like a whore, is it not?"

"Well you did a good job of it."  

"What do you want me to do? Coddle you and obsess over you? I swear, brat, it's as if you have only one purpose in life and that's to demean me."

"I demean you? Well, I do learn from the best." I tried to turn around, but he caught me and held my arms so I faced him. 

"You want me. I've given you what my son could never give you, and you want more." Before I could argue again, he caught me in a fierce kiss once more. I felt myself grow weak; he was so attractive I had to struggle to resist him.

But I managed to pull away from him once more. He seemed amused, not angry as he was the first time. "I told you I can't."

"And yet you want me. Who are you trying to impress by not sleeping with me? Your father?" Vegeta responded. It sounded ridiculous and I was about to argue with him, when the truth of his words hit me.

It was the perfect way to get back at him. My father said he didn't mind as long as I used protection, and thanks to Vegeta planning ahead, I had it. Now, I could get revenge and there was nothing he could do about it. If my father had any further complaints about it, I had another argument as well. It would be hypocritical of him to tell me to stop, so he wouldn't. But inside, he would suffer. And that was exactly what I wanted to happen, I wanted to make him suffer as I had and still would. Not only just because of this whole Bulma and Bra issue, but also because of those months I spent in depression. My father wasn't there for me, he only made things worse. So it was perfectly fine for me to do this with Vegeta and anger my father, it was only paying him back for all the anguish that should've never been there.

"You know what," I said, angered, "My father will be probably too caught up about Bulma to care. And if he does, then maybe he can understand what I'm going through."

"I see you're understanding my point," Vegeta said, pleased in a sort of sinful way.

"Don't rub it in," I said, with playful anger and teased him with a brief kiss. He smirked and lunged, returning the kiss with one completely lacking in virtue, but still wonderful for me. I was pushed backwards and my head pressed against the pillow, thoughts of my father slipping away completely.

"Vegeta," I said, my breathing growing heavier, "You won't throw me away, will you?"

My shirt was pulled off and tossed to the floor with no prudence or care. I felt his hand on my waist and his teeth on my shoulder. Eventually his other hand reached down and he tugged off my pants, and embarrassment and shyness creped back to me. Would I ever be comfortable around him?

"I have plans for you, little girl," he said, mockingly. I sighed and pulled off his shirt. How bizarre and beautiful everything was, and how quickly it had become. Even his words were sounding romantic, something I never thought Vegeta could be.

I smiled and kissed him. 

Life was always changing, and I loved it. 


	8. Saiyan Legacy

Harvest of the Soulless

By Poe

Chapter Eight:

Saiyan Legacy

_"We're all dormant_

_We're all just statement_

_Everyone's just a prison you can't escape_

_Everyone's the only person you can't take."_

            "I have plans for you, little girl," he had said in such a feral but honest tone. 

Plans, indeed. 

Long after Vegeta left, my life was given a furious shake. Things that were already out of place shuffled around in glorious disarray, turning my happiness to dust. I trusted Vegeta, I gave myself to him, and then all of a sudden, I was to be punished for doing it. It was like he had shown up at my door and dealt me a blow to the face for ever liking him or being with him.

Only, in reality, the blow to the face wasn't dealt to me.

 It started about two hours after he left, and one hour after I had tucked away enough anger to come down to breakfast. During breakfast, my father had a look on his face that was a mixture of devastation, guilt, and anger, but he said nothing. I'm sure that he wanted an expression that concealed all emotions, and in his mind he probably thought he had one already, but leave it to my father to wear all his feelings in the most obvious of ways. He knew I had been with Vegeta the other night, he had arrived home with Vegeta still in my room. Vegeta had too much pride to leave right away, so instead he stayed to mock my father with his presence. 

Leaving my father one pissed-off demi-Saiyan.

My mother was oblivious to everything, of course, and both of us wanted it to stay that way. The entire time we were eating breakfast, I was smug but didn't spare my father a glance. He had started off trying to glare at me, but then realized that would tip off my mother. And once she had a hint as to what was going on, she would ask questions constantly to determine the truth. This would mean trouble for both of us, so we were careful not to reveal any clues.

I had finished breakfast and walked over to watch some TV when the doorbell rang. Thanks to ki detection skills, I knew who it was, but it still startled me. 

"Why is Trunks here at a moment like this?" My father questioned, a mix of emotions blending in his tone. He was probably questioning why his problem-saturated life had to be interrupted by one strange visit at a completely inappropriate time, but he chose to voice the obvious.

"Pan," my mother said, "Did you invite Trunks to come over in the **morning?" Her tone exaggerated the severity of the matter. I rolled my eyes.**

"Of course not, I don't know why he's here."

"Well, you'd better answer it or we'll never know."

"Fine," I muttered, getting up from my comfortable spot. I walked over to the door and noticed that Trunks' ki was surprisingly high. It was almost as if he was about to turn Super Saiyan, or perhaps, already had and his ki was slowly declining. I shrugged off the thought and turned the door knob. Casually opening the door, it slowly swung forward to reveal a devastating sight.

My hand fell off the door knob.

My heart began to pound. 

It was this moment that things took yet another drastic turn. 

"What the hell?" I said, the words leaving my mouth as though I had not willed them to, but they had come as sort of a reflex.

Trunks stood before me, but not in the state I usually was used to seeing him in. He was completely torn apart, as though he had just engaged in a fierce battle and lost dishonorably. His hair was bloodied, parts of the blood running down his face. There were fresh wounds blending with bruises all over his face. Casualties on his profile were plenty, a broken nose, black eye, a swollen cheek, a near broken jaw, and bruises and cuts everywhere. The way he hunched over, it appeared he might even have a broken or at least bruised rib or two, and his labored breathing further suggested it. 

Some of the cuts on him I could not assume where they came from, they were deep and strange in appearance. Some would scar, I was sure of that, but nothing he wasn't used to. What worried me was one of his arms hanging limp and the bruise on his temple.

"What happened?" my father exclaimed, rushing over with my mother. 

Trunks shook his head with some difficulty. "I'm sorry, but I need to talk to Pan alone."

"This has to do with her?" my mother asked, her ignorance very obvious.

"Well, I'm surprised too, but if he asks to talk to me alone, then I think I should," I said, my eyes still roaming up and down his destroyed figure.

"Ok, but shouldn't we at least see to some medical attention first? It's been a while since I've seen Trunks in a state this bad!" my father exclaimed.

Trunks shook his head again. "I'll heal. What I need to do is talk with Pan."

"Are you sure?" my mother asked.

"Yes. Please don't worry about me."

I couldn't help but worry about both Trunks and myself. What did I have to do with this?

"We'll talk, then."

Honoring Trunks' request, I took a step outside and glanced at my parents. My father nodded and the door slowly began to shut. We waited there in silence before we felt there ki wander off to distant parts of the house, parts where they couldn't hear us. I stood there with an unvoiced concern weighing on me, as well as shock and horror. Everything in my life was happening so suddenly, I barely had time to cope. Things were starting to look bleak, but I still had no idea what was happening. And now was certainly not the time to be making inferences as to what was going on, now was the time to ask.

Once my parents were at that suitable distance, I turned to him and asked, "Ok, what's going on?"

"Pan," he said, sincerely, "I'll live, I just came here because I need to know something." The expression on his bloodied, broken face changed slightly as his finished his words.

"But how did this happen? What does this have to do with me?"

"Please, just answer my question," he said, sounding more helpless than I had ever seen him before. So this was why he came to us instead of jumping into a regeneration tank. He was more emotionally bruised than physically bruised, and he had to come here to sort it out. The question was why.

"Ok, what is it?"

"Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Why did you sleep with my father?"

"What?" I didn't have time to think.

"I know about you and my father. You can't lie about it anymore."

"Who told you that?" 

"Who else?" he said with resentment, "My father. My lying, cheating, bastard of a father. And now I find out that you aren't much better either."

So he knew. It was a good thing that I was in a casual mood, otherwise I would be in a frenzied panic. It had to happen sometime, I realized, and I was planning on telling him sometime. I just wondered if this was how he was really reacting, or if he was suffering in hidden anguish. Many questions came, but looking at him, this was the strongest.

I guess if I had thought about it more, I would've been sorry, but at the time I didn't stop to realize what kind of an effect this was going to have on my life. I could convince myself all I liked, but I had done a horrible thing and if Trunks was taking this well, something was wrong. Nonetheless, I tried to justify my actions as I had been doing to myself all this time. 

"Trunks, I was in a lot of pain," I argued, "I didn't know what I was doing, I still don't."

"No kidding. According to him, you slept together twice."

My eyes widened. "What else did he say?"

"You don't want to know. I'll spare you that much."

It only took that long to hit me. The world in front of me seemed to distort, I had to struggle to keep conscious. How could this be happening? Both Trunks and my father knew, it seemed like the whole world knew about my mistake. I felt like a whore, with secrets of mine being passed around by someone I was supposed to be trusting.

Vegeta, how could you do this to me?

"Why did he tell you? Why the fuck are you telling me this now, and why are you so beat up?" Tears blurred my vision. Trunks seemed to be satisfied that I was in pain and at the same time angered that I had the nerve to express it when he was the one in the most trouble.

"He told me so I could stay away from you. He said that you belong to him, and that if I touched you, even if you wanted me to, he would make me pay. He's gone sick, I don't even know him anymore. He's obsessed with you, you know."

I shook my head, numb. "So he did this to you? Why?"

"I fought with him. I told him you were my girlfriend and that he had no right sleeping with you. I thought he had forced you, but he kept telling me you wanted him. I didn't believe him, and I was angry at him, so I attacked him." He turned away, as though it pained him to talk further. I wondered if that was emotional or physical pain. 

"Please, go on," I stressed, weakly. 

"His power, it was amazing. He was so much more powerful than me. It looked like some kind of Saiyan phenomena. People were shocked about Super Saiyan, but this was much more than that. He could've killed me without breaking a sweat."

"How could this happen?"

"I don't know, but whatever it is, it started happening to me recently. I notice my power was rising fast, without even having to train. My father might be experiencing the same thing, only in him it's magnified. I was no match for him, I'm lucky I'm still alive."

"Why didn't he kill you?"

"Because I knew he doesn't really want me dead, I think he wanted to teach me some kind of horrible lesson. He would never do this normally, anyway, there must be something horribly wrong with him."

"Nothing's been normal lately," I muttered.

Despite my more casual exterior, inside I was horrified. Could this have anything to do with the Saiyan instinct Vegeta kept talking about? I decided to give it a shot. "Although, I think I might have an idea why."

Trunks raised an eyebrow. "You do?"

"Vegeta says that I want to be with him, and the reason for that is because of some Saiyan instinct or something that makes a Saiyan prefer a Saiyan over another race. Do you think that has anything to do with this?"

As soon as I said that, a look of sheer unbelief spread over his face. "He told you about that?"

"Yeah, so what?"

"Pan, that's the legacy gene."

"Oh, so it has a name. Does it have to do with his power surge or not?"

"Yeah, it explains everything, I'm just surprised he told you about that."

"Slow down, it explains everything?"

"Yeah. The legacy gene, when expressed, causes an increase of power anywhere from small to very high."

"Isn't this a revelation then? Isn't the mystery solved?" I asked, prodding him as to why he wasn't shocked. Was this the answer, and if so, why wasn't he surprised.

Trunks shrugged, as best he could. "I suspected it, but I wasn't sure. If the legacy gene was really activated, then he would have an intense desire to bear children with any Saiyan female he could get his hands on. But not the ones he's related to, of course."

"Wait, bear children? From what it looked like, he just really wanted to sleep with me."

"No, then he'd be going into heat, which Saiyans are too advanced to go through. A Saiyan's highly evolved DNA structure allows it to carry the legacy gene, one that a human wouldn't be able to."

"That's really strange, it sort of leaves some questions unanswered." Why did Vegeta use protection with me?

"That's because it isn't the answer. You wanted to sleep with him."

"Huh? What does that have to do with anything?"

"Well, did you or didn't you?" he asked, impatiently.

"Why should I tell you?"

"Because we can't find out if you don't!"

"Well, I don't want to say."

"Then it's a yes, and the legacy gene theory doesn't work."

"And why is that?"

He rolled his eyes. "Just tell me yes, or no. I'm already assuming yes."

"Fine! Yes! But only because I really liked him and that was the only way to have a relationship with him."

"Oh, and that makes it better?"

"Look, Trunks, I'm sorry about sleeping with him and not telling you. I should've broken up with you before he came along, but I really don't see lot of difference. Our relationship was failing anyway."

His eyes widened. "What?"

"It was failing! We had nothing going for us. Now, about that legacy gene-"

"I came here thinking you would just apologize and I would forgive you! But now you're telling me that we were 'failing'? I liked you! I was wiling to get over this!"

"Trunks, I didn't know," I pleaded, "I still like you, just not in that way."

"You're going to go to him, aren't you? You're going to go sleep with that sick asshole and all I can do is here about it from my father. I can't even beat him in battle anymore, what if he tries to kill me?"

"No! Forget about Vegeta! We need to talk about us!"

"Well you want to know something?" Trunks said, menacingly.

"What?"

"He probably does have the legacy gene, but you don't. You know why?"

"I don't? Why?"

"Because it only runs in royal blood."

"What?"

"Only the members of the royal family have it."

"No that can't be true," I said, panic pouring over me.

"There's some speculation that the royal family was genetically engineered some time back to have this gene so they wouldn't be eliminated from the gene pool. You know, Saiyans have a lot of enemies."

Damn it, why did it have to make sense? "But then… Vegeta said…"

"My father lied if he told you that you have it. I told you, it's only the royal family that has it, I'm sure of that."

"How do you know that?"

"The legacy gene was made to preserve Saiyan legacy. Only the royal blood had value to what was the Saiyan race, it was run by the elite remember?"

I looked at his grief-stricken, bloodied face and my world fell apart.

Royal blood?

I've been deceived. 

  



	9. Angels and Swine

Harvest of the Soulless 

By Poe

Chapter Nine:

Angels and Swine

_Entertain us with courage,_

_Of stories we could never tell,_

_Train us to love and give,_

_And never be complete._

_We are trapped, you see,_

_Between the angels and swine,_

_Complacent, irreverent,_

_And ultimately, so afraid. _

_How well it is,_

_That we are all together,_

_Trusting nothing,_

_But still so in love. _

            So this was it.

            I saw him, playing in the memories of my head, not as a liar, but as Vegeta. Handsome, looming over me, holding me in a tight grip, and kissing me endlessly. I was in love with him, but was I just a pawn? He wasn't gentle, but there was something about him that was hauntingly fragile. How could that beautiful, frail man, crush me like this? 

            I swallowed hard as I thought of what he had done. He had lied to me to get me in bed with him? How typical of a man! How could I have fallen for such a petty trick? I was torn between hating myself and hating him, and confused as to who I was betrayed by. Perhaps it was really me who betrayed myself, my naiveté was so clear to me now.

            Wasn't lying to get what he wanted dishonorable? It was, but I could recall moments where he had been pushed to a point where he could ignore his pride and do what he wanted. There were certain things he would never do, but others, he could always make up an excuse to justify his own actions. But for a man whose pride meant so much to him, certainly ignoring his pride would be an act of desperation.

            Did he want me that much?

            Of course not, I thought, it was just instinct. I was too angry to even consider the  possibility that he had done it because he liked me. I was angry at him for many things, I suppose, not just that. He had pushed me to betray Trunks, someone who seemed to love me more deeply than he could ever, and he pushed me to betray myself. I shouldn't have woken up by his side with that nagging guilt and fettering shame, and I shouldn't have woken up by his side at all. I was supposed to marry Trunks, have a white wedding, and lots of children, and do all of this without the influence of any Saiyan genetics or instincts, or whatever you want to call it. Trunks was what I should deserve and have and if I didn't, something was wrong.

            Right?

            I looked at Trunks and his condition made me cringe. If I loved a man who did that to someone who loved me and whom Vegeta himself had probably loved, I was sick. More so than Vegeta, in some aspects. But that really wasn't the issue now, this whole instinct mess was. I had to talk to Trunks, he would help me with what to do.

            "Trunks?" I questioned, in a more docile tone than the ones I had used before. He didn't say anything, but just looked at me, expectantly. 

            "I think I should talk to him."

            I waited for him to respond, but he didn't.

            "You know, straighten things out. Not that we'll actually talk, I'll probably be yelling at him the whole time, that creep-"

            "Pan," he interrupted, "Promise me something." 

            "Promise?"

            "I need you to promise me something for your own good."

            "What is it then?"

            "I want you to stay away from Vegeta. His power is… like nothing I've ever seen before. I don't know if this is a side effect of the gene being activated, but it's dangerous. This isn't about you sleeping with him, I just want you to stay away from him. Please, I can forgive you, just promise me." His tone was harsh but sincere.

            "Trunks, I need to talk to him! I'm sorry I can't promise you this, but I also can't just run away from him."

            "Look at what he did to me! Do you really want to be put in that kind of risk?"

            "I'll be fine, he's never hurt me before. He just probably did that to toughen you up, or something. I know he's an asshole, but he won't forget about his honor and kill someone weaker than him. He didn't kill you, did he?"

            "I'm his son, Pan! Think about this! I've known him all my life, obviously, and he's never done anything like this before. I was worried that he was going to attack my mother, and I think that it's only luck that he hasn't-"

            "Not luck, honor. It would be cowardly of him to kill me, you know that. Besides, I don't know why you are making such a big deal out of this."

"Because I care!" he exclaimed, resent pouring out of his words, "I care about you, I have for so long. My love isn't about some gene, I actually like you, damn it! And you keep making me regret it, but you can't stop me from caring."

I was taken a bit aback, but I ignored these feelings. He meant nothing. "Oh, so you love me?" I asked, skeptically.

"Yes, of course!" he responded, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

 "Then how come you're telling me this at the same time that Vegeta's going crazy and powerful beyond control? Didn't you say the gene runs in royal blood?"

"What are you implying?" 

"What do you think?"

A frustrated pause. "Do you think that I only like you because of the legacy gene?" 

"Of course, if makes sense. I mean, if Vegeta likes me because of it, why not you?"

"But, I've liked you before that! Long before that!"

I raised a brow. "Back when I was the lovable Pan that was like a little sister to you? Our age difference might be big, but that's just crossing the line."

"No, not when you were a kid, I've liked you since…" His voice trailed suspiciously off.            

"Since when?"

            "Since…. Well, what does it matter, anyway? I only have a small desire to have children with you, but that's only because I'm getting older. You know, older people like to settle down and have a family, what's so wrong with that?

My jaw fell open. "You **do only like me because I'm Saiyan! That stupid gene, messing with me all this time! I can't believe this!"**

"No, no, Pan, that's not the reason!" He reached out with a bruised and damaged arm to comfort me but I slapped it away, knowing that hitting him would not really hurt him, even in his state. "But Pan, I'm serious, if my gene was activated, then why aren't I experiencing a surge in power?"

"Didn't you say that the power surge could be anywhere from small to high?" I retorted, forcing back a hint of tears. 

"Yes," he grumbled.

"Now you're trying to trick me? It really is the gene! Damn it, am I that unattractive that I can't just have the one guy I want… No, you know what? I'm not going to put up with this. I'm leaving you and Vegeta and I'm moving on with my life."

"Pan, you're being irrational!"

"Of course not! It's what I should've done in the first place!"

"No! Think this over, this is too sudden."

"Sudden? You don't know the half of sudden! I was woken up in the middle of the night to find out that my father was having an affair with Bra, but when really it was Bulma. Then Vegeta tells me that my father secretly like Bra because of some stupid Saiyan instinct, which says I should like Vegeta, and my father can only like Bra. Now I discover that it's not true at all, that only Bra likes my father and Vegeta likes me, and the reason I like Vegeta is still a complete mystery. Also, Vegeta's gone insane, and insanely powerful, and he wants to kill his own son, who I've been dating, and who really doesn't like me at all, but has just tried to deceive me into believing otherwise. Not to mention, all of this has happened within a two-day period. Now, tell me," I said, taking a deep breath, "what's sudden?"

He blinked a few times. "I see your point."

I responded with a glare.

"Pan, I just don't want you to leave me, that's all. I don't care if the reason I love you is because I have to, I still love you. Is that really a crime?"

"Of course, you… swine! You lied to me so you could have the chance to impregnate me! That's a crime to me." I sat down in frustration.

"Your exaggerating, Pan!" he said, still standing.

"Why can't you just leave me alone? I'm so sick of you people ruining my life, it was bad enough as it was."

"Damn it, I love you! I really do!"

"Then go away and stay there." I crossed my arms and looked the other way. I knew it was childish, but I meant what I said. Trunks sighed and sat down, with a bit of care a difficulty, in front of me.

"You don't get it, do you?"

"Huh?"

"There's something you're not understanding."

"Oh? What's that?"

Trunks sighed and ran a bruised hand through his hair. Distantly, I remembered how his hair was softer than mine. "I've told you more than I should."

"Well, obviously for you."

"No, I don't mean it like that. What I mean is that my father probably suspects that I've told you something, and now that I have, he can find out and be very angry at the both of us."

"Why would he be angry at me?"

Trunks shrugged. "For being so involved."

I rolled my eyes. "He should be happy I'm involved at all."

"Well, the reason I'm telling you this is that… I feel like I can't leave you or he might hurt you."

"Don't go protective on me," I snapped, "I can take care of myself."

"Pan, he nearly killed me. Who knows what's going on in his mind."

"Didn't we just talk about this?"

"I guess," he sighed.

"So it's settled, then."

"It is?"

"Yes. You can leave now, and you probably should. I mean, you came here in what looked like the verge of death."

"You care?"

My eyes widened. "I'm not heartless."

"Yeah, but that kind of surprised me. I didn't think you would mind if I just died on the spot."

"You know, it's a bit suspicious that you could come all the way over here, strike up a conversation with me, and not pass out or die or something."

"I didn't lose that badly," he said, stubbornly.

"I think your power's higher than you think it is. But why are we talking about this? I'm mad at you and your father, so you both should die for all I care!"

He laughed. "You sure change subjects at strange times."

I glared. "What is it with everyone treating me like a kid and not taking me seriously? I have every reason to be mad at you, and I can change the subject any time I want." 

"Pan, I forgive you! That's saying a lot. Please stop being angry with me!"

"You don't love me! Stop lying!" I stood up.

Trunks paused for a second as though he noticed something. I raised an eyebrow. He suddenly jumped up, and his expression turned angry. "You don't have to believe me, but it's true. And since you like things always your way, you should be happy. Vegeta's on his way, probably to kill us both."

"What?" I exclaimed.

"I just felt his ki, he's on his way."

"Is this a joke?"

"He'll be here soon, you'll be able to detect it."

"What the hell are you talking about? Why would he be coming now?"

"To kill us both, I said already. He's going to kill me for telling and you for knowing."

"He won't kill us, no way."

"I know him, Pan, he's going to at least hurt one of us."

"I'm so angry at him! He's going to get it once he gets here, he really is!"

"You won't have time to complain, he'll probably final flash you to your grave and there's nothing I can do about it."

"Trunks, I think you're the one exaggerating." I stopped and cringed as I felt his ki signature. So Trunks was right. "Oh damn it, he really is coming."

Trunks threw up his hands in frustration. "Now we wait. And it shouldn't be long."

"You act like your giving up. You never give up," I pointed out.

His eyebrows rose. "I'm not. And I'm not giving you away either. I just know when it's a battle with no hope."

"Is he really that powerful?" I scoffed.

"You'll see for yourself." 

I doubted him, thanks to my stubborn courage. I didn't think a mere gene, a chemical messenger, could create a monstrosity that could threaten both of our lives. Instead, I just stood there with Trunks, an awkward silence settling over us that neither of us cared to break.  

Vegeta neared, and both of us remained calm on the exterior. A visit from the Saiyan prince was nothing new to the both of us, we simply had to treat it thusly. Nothing special, nothing phenomenal, just another moment with the most annoying Saiyan around.

I sighed and looked at Trunks, still covered in injuries and faring quite well. How was it that he managed to do that? Was it really the gene? With Vegeta on his way, I couldn't help but wonder.

"Pan?" Trunks ventured, his eyes meeting mine sternly.

"What?"

"Stay away from him. He can kill us all."

With the way he was acting, I could've mistaken him for a man who seriously loved me. He said this with such passion it was almost as though he meant it. Trunks said he had forgiven me, but I wondered if he really had. With the stern tone of his voice, it made me think he loved me enough to be deeply hurt by what I did to him. It seemed like he hadn't come to terms with this yet, that he cared so much for me that he was only on the way to forgiving me.

I sighed. There were other questions, but for now, I could only wait.

"Will he, Trunks?" I said, so jaded, feeling Vegeta's ki nearing so close he could descend any moment, "Will he?"

Trunks sighed. "I wish I knew."

Trunks might've been older than me, but he missed something that came clearly to me. My question was rhetorical, but his was sincere. He just didn't understand, and thought so ignorantly he did.

But I knew, I knew quite well.

I only wished Trunks could agree with me. 

  



	10. An Anticipated End

Harvest of the Soulless

By Poe

Chapter Ten: 

An Anticipated End

_"Here the river runs_

_A shallow bed of stones_

_With no flow but the innocence that once was_

_And no trials but the anticipated end."_

            I waited with Trunks for Vegeta to arrive. I thought that I would find not answers, but more questions. I was sure that it would evolve into argument, with an anticipated end that would prove to be disadvantageous for the both of us. I was used to questions and arguments, but what was to come was far different than I could've imagined. It was a revelation, a portrayal of the side of Vegeta I had ignored. 

            Trunks and I waited, only I waited calmly. He was angry and resentful, almost as if the apocalypse was steadily approaching instead of just Vegeta. Frankly, with Trunks' persistent warnings, I was starting to be a little worried myself. He said Vegeta's power was beyond anything he had seen, and Trunks had been near death when he came to my doorstop. It almost looked as if he had run away or surrendered in order to survive, Vegeta's compassion was growing harder to notice, if it even existed at all. I wondered what his power was really like, if he was everything Trunks said he was.

            When Vegeta came, I braced myself. I saw him at first, craning my neck to look up, and he was a floating figure in the watery grey sky. He descended casually, an aura of smug anger about him. I could see Trunks' jaw clench, and his fists tighten. Trunks seemed still upset about what had happened, and it wasn't surprising. He had obviously been deeply shocked and perturbed by the fight, not to mention disappointed to have been defeated.

            I was lost in thought when Vegeta's feet touched the ground, and it startled me to realize he was so close. I spun around to face him, ignoring Trunks completely. He stood before me, with a small trail of blood sullying his features, trailing from his temple down to his jaw line. I remembered the fight and stifled a gasp. That was it? I expected a bruised and broken Vegeta, but all I saw was a bit of blood. He probably didn't even have anything broken, unlike misfortunate Trunks. 

            "Vegeta?" I questioned, and then decided to venture for the obvious before asking about his appearances, "What are you doing here?"

            He scoffed as though answering that was unseemly of him, and instead turned to Trunks. "You've been talking, I see, to our favorite semi-human whore." I cringed at his sarcasm and cruelty.

            "You know damn well she's not a whore. You're the one who tricked her into sleeping with you!" Trunks shouted, and a look of confusion spread on Vegeta's face.

            "Yeah, that's right Vegeta, I heard all about how you lied to me about the legacy gene. How could you? To think, I actually assumed there was some decency in you."

            "What in the hell are you talking about now?" Vegeta snapped, "You think I lied to get in bed with you?"

            "Of course! You told me that the legacy gene runs in all Saiyans, Trunks tells me that it only runs in royal blood!"

            "Royal blood? Well, yes it runs in only royal blood, but what does that have to do with anything?"

            Confusion poured over me. "Are you dense? Because I don't have any royal blood and you said that I had the legacy gene!"

            His brow furrowed in anger. "I said no such thing."

            "Well, you called it 'Saiyan instinct', and Trunks told me that this instinct was caused by the legacy gene." I glanced quickly at Trunks for approval, and he seemed as shocked and confused as I was.

            "Of course he told you that, he's obviously a half-wit who doesn't know his proper Saiyan genetics," Vegeta said, casting a glare at Trunks, "A similar gene, one less powerful, was also engineered into Saiyan warrior's DNA for experimentation purposes. Kakkarott, the son of Bardock, was one of the many who carried this gene."

            My jaw dropped. "So I really do have this gene? And my father's going to end up with Bra? This is too much, I don't know who to believe!"

            "You never told me about this, **father," Trunks clarified, "is this scientific fact or just another one of your lies?"  **

            "If I wanted the brat to sleep with me," Vegeta said, growing very angered, "I would not have to lie to do it. You can be sure of that."

            "Are you calling me a whore?"

            Both heads jerked towards me. "Of course I am," Vegeta responded with resentment, "And I can only hope our offspring don't exhibit the same lack of decency you have."

            "Offspring? Lack of decency?" I exclaimed, outraged, "How could you say that, you heartless monster? You have to be kidding me, after all I've done for you!"

            "Both of you are changing the subject! How do we even know, Pan, if he's telling the truth about this genetics thing?"

            I paused. "Yes, how do we know?"

            "You fail to realize that I don't care if you believe me or not. It doesn't change the truth, as much as I wish it did." 

            Trunks put a hand to his temple, frustrated. "Do you have any proof? Whether or not you care, we need to know."

            Vegeta showed equal frustration in his answer. "Haven't you been listening? The gene has very active side effects, all you need to do is wait for them to show themselves."

            "You mean… Bra and my father?"

            A smirk. "Of course. But you're forgetting someone."

            Trunks glanced at me quickly. "Me and you," I answered, numbly.

            "I still don't believe your crap."

            "Then don't," Vegeta said harshly, "Although if I were lying I certainly would've chosen a more suitable mate to make an elaborate story about."

            "Now's really not the time, Vegeta."

            "Pan," Trunks said, turning to me, "even if he isn't lying, we can still be together."

            "She's always prefer me to you. It will kill her with desire to chose you."

            "Bullshit," I snapped.

            "You can't prove that, even with Bra and Gohan getting together," Trunks pointed out on my behalf.

            "Your making assumptions. You haven't even asked her whom she prefers."

            Trunks crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "You want me to ask her?"

            "Go ahead, I dare you." 

            "Fine. Pan," he said, turning to me, "he has a point. I need to know what you think."

            "After all this, isn't it obvious?" I asked, "And of course he has a point, how else would you decide who I would go to?"

            "Pan, this isn't obvious, can you just tell me who you prefer? I mean, I can give you some time-"

            "No, I don't need time. This is very clear to me."

            "Is it?" Vegeta asked sarcastically, looking Trunk's broken, bloodied body up and down.

            "Yes. If it weren't for this gene, I would choose neither."

            "Neither?" Trunks gasped.

            "Of course, and not only because of the age difference. You two are just way too chauvinistic inside."

            "Me? A chauvinist?" Trunks questioned, as if it was the most stunning thing in the world.

            "It's something most people don't notice about you. But when you fight, when you show who you really are, you're so much like your father. Much more than you or anyone else realizes."

            "Yes, well, can we get on with your actual decision? Because, I can assure you, if it weren't for this gene I certainly wouldn't sleep with some melodramatic teenager-"

            "Yes," Trunks cut in, "What is your decision?" 

            "You know, we still haven't resolved this whole matter about whether or not this is true. For all I know it could be all one big confusion or lie, for that matter."

            "Well, assuming it isn't," Trunks said, very curiously.

            I rolled my eyes. "Trunks…"

            "Trunks what?" Vegeta asked.

            "I'd choose Trunks."

            "You mean you choose me?"

            "No, I **would** choose you, if all of this wasn't a lie…"

            "Which it's blatantly not," Vegeta replied.

            "Ok, so you **would** choose me?"

            "Yes! I told you already! What's the shock?"

            "You slept with Vegeta, I thought you had feelings for him."

            "I thought I did."

            "Then why didn't you sleep with me?"

            I gasped. "What?"

            "No, I mean, why him and not me? I'm just curious."

            "Well, stop. I'm not answering that."

            "Ok, I'm sorry, really, forget I said anything." 

            Vegeta's laugh interrupted. Both of us turned to look at him, with questioning glances.

            "Why are you laughing?"

            "Don't you see?" he asked.

            "See what?"

            "You think you have so much control over this. That the attraction formed by the gene is nothing more than harmless. You know little of this gene, and yet take liberties in assuming that it's easily tamed."

            "What are you getting at?" I asked, growing a bit nervous. Vegeta's eyes met mine.

            "You cannot resist this. It will conquer you."

            "Are you saying that I can only be with you? And my father with Bra? No matter what?"

            "I've told you this dozens of time, and I am no liar. The gene is more powerful than you can force your lowly mind to comprehend. Just look at my strength, I have reached a glorious new apex in Saiyan power."

            Trunks seemed resentful as he said this, but I ignored him. "Like I said, I won't believe anything without your proof. And I still pick Trunks, you can't change that."

            "The gene sure as hell can. You only need to accept your fate."

            "You're just saying that to tear her away from me," Trunks said, slipping an arm around me. I was a bit surprised at this gesture, and offended, but I didn't pull away.

            "I didn't expect you to believe me, but it is still true."

            "No, it can't be," I said, pulling closer to Trunks just to spite him. Vegeta looked at us in disgust.

            "Go ahead. Deny it. Play your little games. But in the end, it's me whom you belong to."

            "You're lying. All of this is a lie. You're just jealous of Trunks and I."

            "And what do you have that I would be so jealous of?"

            "A relationship," Trunks responded, "I am willing to forgive her and make this work. If the situation was reversed, you would never forgiver her. That's what makes you such scum, you just can't love."

            "A scum she slept with," Vegeta pointed out, snidely. Witty, I'll admit, but it managed to anger me.

            "Don't you bring that up," I responded, "I chose Trunks and that's final. The past doesn't matter anymore."

            "And what of the future? Or should I say, **our** future."

            I struggled not to slap him. "Wishful thinking, Vegeta."

            "Wishful thinking? And I suppose your father and that whore of a human was just a coincidence?" 

            "Maybe it was the gene, but that still doesn't mean I will prefer you to Trunks."

            "It means more than you choose to see. I have no reason to lie to you, and I hate this with a passion. But still, I know that I will be your obsession, and you will not live without me."

            "Stop this, both of you," Trunks said, angered, "Can't you tell we've come to a stalemate?"

            I sighed reluctantly. "Stalemate? I suppose." Vegeta did not reply.

            "I have a solution to this argument."

            "You do?" I asked.

            "Yes. It's the most obvious course of action," Trunks started.

            "And what's that?"

            "We wait it out."

            "Wait it out?"

            "Yes. If Vegeta's right, you'll choose him. If not, you'll be with me."

            "Or someone else," I pointed out.

            "Yeah, that too. So, father, do you accept?"

            Vegeta looked me over, and then said something shocking. "Very well, I'll come to your terms. You can have your Saiyan plaything, but in due time, she'll want me much more than she'll ever want you."

            "Wait, you're agreeing to this?" I asked, confused that Vegeta would accept this.

            "I am no liar, you will be with me. Time has little importance to me, I am not anxious to have you once more," Vegeta said, cynically. 

            "Then it's settled. We'll wait it out, and in the meantime, be with whomever we want. If you're right, then Pan will chose you. Otherwise, she'll be with me or someone else."

            I guess I was a bit amazed that we had come to a diplomatic compromise, especially after the insanity of the argument we just had.

           "That's it? So we're done?"

            "Of course, what more is there to resolve?"

            "How will I know where to find Vegeta when I come crawling back to him thanks to an imaginary aspect of the gene?" I asked, sarcastically. 

            Vegeta glared. "You joke now, but in a few years, you'll be begging for me to take you to my bed."

            Trunks shuddered. "I thought we resolved this."

            "Yes," I said, relieved to finally say it, "We have."

            The argument was settled, in a way, when I said it and finalized it. I wanted things to go back to normal, the way they were before. Slowly, they seemed to be. I was with Trunks again, and although my father and Bulma's future was still unknown, I had a feeling that wouldn't last. She was not meant for my father, and nor was I meant for Vegeta.

            Being with Trunks felt right again, after that little heated discussion. It wasn't an instant thing, but more of a feeling that seeped over me. I wasn't entirely sure that Trunks and I belonged together all along, but it was him I wanted. I had realized this when I had seen him so beaten and felt such an overwhelming panic storm up. I was so stunned and angry that someone had hurt him, and worried for his sake.

            But here he was, willing to forgive me. That was love, true love. It wasn't some gene, it was an emotion that was the most beautiful one in the world. Those months I had spent living in a self-dug hole of depression; I had been lacking that very emotion. I had clawed at it and reached for it, never knowing what it was. 

            And now, all along, it was beside me. It could save me from unhappiness, it could give me a brand new life. The only thing I needed Vegeta for was to bind us together, without even trying. 

            I had gone through so much, but here it was. I had Trunks, my love was requited, and that was all that mattered. I would wait, to humor Vegeta, but I knew that time would pass and nothing would come between us. Nothing he said would, nothing the gene was claimed to bring about.

            Nothing at all.

            And Trunks and I, despite all else, would be happy because of it.

  



	11. Harvest of the Soulless

Harvest of the Soulless

By Poe

Chapter Eleven:

Harvest of the Soulless

_"Here, the faithful implore us,_

_But all these signs were chosen _

_and ignored._

_All that is righteous,_

_we tell them, has withered with the harvest._

_All is nothing once troubles find us._

_Still, they try to lead us,_

_to heard us like beasts of burden,_

_to toss us into happiness.  _

_Oh, we are such foolish creatures,_

_we are the soulless._

_Our home is a distant place,_

_and the air around us, each day, grows so lonely with song."_

THREE YEARS LATER

            I threw down the pregnancy test in disgust. Tears flooded my eyes, tears that seemed to be generated from the core of me, and my fists clenched. I glared at the floor, where the pregnancy test had fallen, and the room blurred with tears. This was happening all over again, and I felt my stomach churn in nausea. 

            Negative. 

            As usual.

            I had tried for a year to become pregnant with Vegeta's child. It must sound ridiculous, I know, but things had come out happening just as he had said those three years ago. Emotion after emotion, I was created into the very person, the very whore, he swore I would be. I wanted his child, and I would not be satisfied until I did. Sadly enough, nor would he. 

            I remembered it clearly, all the details of those three years. Things were frantic, even in times of calm, because feelings stormed quietly within that would not be put to rest. Events started taking place that would build up to this moment, and I was complacent and so very ignorant. I suppose all of us were, and it's little surprise we were so unsuspecting. This was a reality too twisted to imagine happening to us.

The real story leading up to this moment where I am crying into my hands on the floor because I am not pregnant began when I first started dating Trunks. However, the point of deterioration began three years ago when I was given a choice. A choice between Vegeta or Trunks. As you know, I chose Trunks. 

I had stayed with Trunks, thinking that it was what I needed. I thought I was fulfilled, and that we were meant for each other. It was just like those months we first spent together, only alight with the glow of renewal. Those obstacles, I thought, were there to bring us together. Instead, the shadows of my past chased me down and consumed me. 

            Trunks gave me affection and love, so much so that he moved in with me. Once I was 19, I had moved to a new home closer to the city and my job. I was accepted into a good college, but I was taking a year off to figure out what I was going to do with my life. Trunks proved to be such a suitable partner, he moved in with me, and tried to help me with career options. He understood what it was like to be part human part Saiyan, and then not know which side to acquiesce to.

            I decided to stick to being human for a while, just so I could have that option open for me in the future. Trunks, meanwhile, would lend me emotional support. Soon, furniture and clothes that weren't mine began to scatter about the house. Pictures of us together cluttered any mantle, and we even shared a bed. Trunks and I were closer than ever, much to my father and mother's delight. 

            Our relationship, at least my side of it, was strictly platonic. It was simple, modest, and everything I should want a relationship to be. Inadvertently, we had tried to rid ourselves of Saiyan instinct, and our actions were meant to be parallel to a human's. We delighted in pretending that we had forgotten the Saiyan side of us, except when it could be used to our advantage. But as I was to learn, things, particularly matters regarding emotions or complications thereof, seldom work to your benefit. 

            My father later learned this himself. I had grown to love him once again, forgiving him for the atrocity he committed those years ago. One night, however, he surprised me. My father admitted to having feelings for Bra. He told me that he thought she was growing into a woman, that she was beautiful and that if he were younger and single, he wouldn't mind being with her and maybe starting a family. 

He had followed the same path as I had, which, oddly enough, made me love him more. First he had let his emotions govern him, then he had realized what was right for him, and then he had settled with that. For me it was Trunks, for him it was my mother.

He and my mother got back together, without even having to divorce, and it seemed their relationship was a perfect one set in stone. They never spoke of the affair, and were affectionate and loving as they had once been. It almost made me think that the best thing to do in a relationship was to shut up and pretend nothing was wrong.

But that course of action was exactly what led me, a twenty-one year-old to be in tears because I wasn't pregnant. It might not have been the cause, but it certainly helped this hell blossom. 

It was about a year into our renewed relationship that I began to feel the affliction creep on again. An obsession, like a sickness, took over once again. I wanted Vegeta again. I would think about him constantly, he possessed my thoughts all day. I had Trunks, but all I could do was want Vegeta. 

At first I hid this infatuation like a secret, like I had done before. I tried to tuck it away in the corner of my mind, but it was so persistent and clawed at my awareness. It was ready to break free always, even as it was young again, and it was trapped in a cage it hated to be in.  

Of course, there came a time when I could not stand to hide it anymore. I couldn't suffocate it, I couldn't ignore it, I had to confront it. No matter how much I tried it was always there and it wouldn't go away. I had to do whatever it took to get rid of it, and so I committed a drastic act.

I went to Vegeta.

I felt horrible doing it, and weak, but I just had to. It was so easy to find him, and I passed by his residence frequently, so I could easily make up an excuse. He was still living in the gravity room at Capsule Corporation, but probably only because he had nowhere else to train. It was rumored that he and Bulma had reunited, but I didn't let those rumors deter me.

So, on the way to Capsule Corporation, I stopped at the gravity room. 

At first, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I raised my hand to knock, but couldn't knock. H_e already knows your there_, I told myself, _just knock and get it over with_. But then I debated why I had come in the first place. I tried to reason with myself that it was a problem, and that I was merely confronting it. I wasn't a coward, I had to face my fear. I just had to push away all doubts and go for it. 

Before I could knock, the door had opened from the other side. I stood there, frozen, and watching the door open anxiously to see if he was there. Silly, I know, but after not seeing him for so long, it was something else. The door opened all the way, and there he stood.

I remember how he looked so clearly. Vegeta was a bit different, slightly older, but still handsome. He was clad in what looked like shorts designed for training in the gravity room, an ugly color, I remember, and was shirtless and sweaty. I blushed, mostly at the sight of his scars, those familiar scars I first saw in the forest after discovering my father and Bulma. 

It was sort of overwhelming to see him as handsome as ever, with ugly shorts and not too much age added onto him. He still looked older, almost too old for my taste, but I had to appreciate that he didn't look his age. 

There was something else about him that changed as well. He seemed almost more evil, like he was gearing up for a cynical comment the moment he saw me. His gaze made me almost wish I had worn something nicer, in some strange way. When he looked me over, he looked as though he was surveying a plot of land. 

"Vegeta," I started, not really knowing what to say but deciding anything would be fine, "We need to talk."

He smirked, the new, stronger evil in his eyes flaring drastically. "Talk?" he started, that same lust present in his voice, "Whatever for?"

Memories flooded back to me and a panic rose. I was nervous and scared all over again. Vegeta looked so evil and bitter I almost feared for my life. 

Before I could respond, he did something I wouldn't have imagined he would've done. His arm looped around my waist and he crushed me to his bare chest. I gasped at his gall and his assumptions, not to mention in surprise.

"What are you doing?" I questioned, feelings flooding me before I could think.

A complacent smirk. "You should know. I've done it before."

I felt a look of offense spread over my face. "Is this what you think I came for?"

"Of course. What else would you come for? To exchange gossip?"

"I told you, we need to talk. And no, it's not gossip."

His fingers found their way to my hair, still not brushed and unkempt, and he slipped them up my neck into my hair.

 "You've changed," he noted, "and yet you're still my Saiyan whore."

"Don't change the subject," I snapped, "and no, I'm not your Saiyan whore!"

"You know, after all this time, I wonder if you're still good in bed."

I gasped again. I knew he was just saying that to spite me, but he had changed. Even though it was a joke, I'm sure, I knew he was more evil and sick than he had been before. "Pervert! What makes you so sure you'll find out?"

            As soon as those words left my mouth he did something I should've predicted but failed to. Vegeta kissed me, fiercely as he had done before, but with more skill than I remembered him doing before. I felt joy gather in me, joy I hated for being there. 

            I didn't think to pull away, but only to pretend I was disgusted and not kiss back. Surprisingly, I didn't even think of Trunks at first. It took a full 10 or so seconds of just standing there shocked while he ravaged me before I remembered. 

            I pulled back, automatically. He expected it, I knew, but thought of my hesitancy as an obstacle waiting to be conquered. 

            "Trunks, I'm going out with Trunks," I blurted out, trying to regain orientation. 

            "Yes, well, despite his girly demeanor, I doubt he'll take it well that we slept together."

            "What? Oh, you mean, that we **will** sleep together." When I realized what I had said, my eyes widened and I was about to take it back before he kissed me again. He had tricked me into saying it, but now he had permission. 

            _Isn't this what you want?_ I asked myself. It was really what I came for, despite the fact that I had tried to convince Vegeta otherwise. I was supposed to be happy. But as he kissed me, and as I enjoyed it, my pride screamed at me to pull away.

            So I did. 

            Vegeta was surprised this time when I pulled away, but anger coated his visage once again.

            "Repetitive, aren't we?"

            I scoffed. "For a reason."

            "Such forced modesty will not impress me, little girl."

            "I'm not trying to impress you, I'm being honest."

            "Are you?" he started, " Then why isn't you pretend to be in love with my son, and hate me?"

            I grumbled something under my breath. "What?" Vegeta snapped.

            "I said, 'I never said I hated you'," I responded harshly, though my words were kind. 

            Strangely enough, those words formed a relationship between us. After I said that, it was almost as if we were a couple again. It was that fast and sudden, and it had started as a submission on my part. But to be honest, I gained more than I lost.

            Our time had ended that evening with no extremely intimate contact, surprisingly. I had stopped him and told him I needed to go back. He hadn't been pleased with the idea of me rejecting him, but he knew I would come back. He knew I could not stand to be too long without him.

We met in secret at the gravity room from then on. I would go there when I needed escape, it was my place to run away. When Trunks and I would get into a fight, I would go there for comfort. Not that Vegeta would comfort me, but his presence was enough.

            One time, I remembered, Trunks and I had fought to the point that I almost kicked him out of the house. Instead, though, I yelled something at him and then left. The first thing I did was rush over to the gravity room, where at least having my Saiyan needs comforted would make me forget. 

            When I got there, we did what we always did. Rip out whatever gains we could from each other in any way possible. We had started kissing, and tears began to stream down my face and sobs choked me. Vegeta stopped at once and pulled away from me, staring at me with shock as though I had just burst into flames instead of into tears.

            I explained everything to him and he grew angrier and angrier. Vegeta hated that I was still with Trunks, and he would not hesitate in hurting Trunks as he had done before if it didn't mean I would think of him as jealous. 

            He made me swear I would end my relationship with Trunks. It was easy for me, considering how Trunks and I had just been in an argument and I was still angry with him. But honestly, I regretted giving Vegeta my word that the relationship would be terminated. Trunks was my support, and had always been there in difficult times. But when Vegeta convinced me that I was a fool for being with him, I couldn't help but agree. 

            Trunks was devastated when I told him I wanted to end the relationship the next day. He tried to talk me out of it, but I was stubborn in my decision. I told him about the affair, and how I was just waiting for the chance or the excuse to end this relationship, because it wasn't right. Our arguments proved to be just that.

            It was a big step, but it was something I should've done a long time ago. I only chose Trunks over Vegeta because it seemed to be the right thing to do. I undervalued expediency and my own feelings, and dug myself into a hole that took a promise to get out of. By giving up Trunks, I was giving into my emotions, not Vegeta. Perhaps that was the right thing all along. 

            So, as a result, Trunks moved out. I stayed in my own apartment, but frequently saw Vegeta. He was considerably smug after Trunks and I broke-up, noticeably so. In his own twisted way, he said that the situation was appropriate to have his child. As disgusting and chauvinistic as it sounds, I wanted to, with all of me. 

            The legacy gene was taking its painful course.

            Because of this, I had asked Vegeta about Saiyan traditions regarding marriage. I asked if there was such a thing in Saiyan culture, and if it was different from human marriage. He said it was, and in doing so, explained a great deal of his relationship with Bulma.

            There were two different kinds of marriage. One was a sort of game of favorites, a brief ceremony nobles performed to affirm which of their many lovers was their best. It was a one-sided vow that kings often performed on their concubines that basically said that the concubine would be with no other, but the king could be with whomever. 

            The second kind of marriage was where two lovers made a vow that would bind them to each other for five of Vegetasei's years. They were allowed to sleep with other people, but oddly enough, not to "love" anyone else. It was tradition to renew these vows every five "years".    

I asked Vegeta if he would like to just marry the human way, and he refused. Because it was customary, he would only marry me the first kind of way, which meant he could still sleep with anyone he wished. It took me a long time to settle for that, but I did, on the notion that Vegeta would prefer me to a human because of the legacy gene.

As far as I know, I was right.

So, we married the perverse, Saiyan way. Trunks was blissfully out of the picture, and I was free to give into my premature maternal needs. Sometimes, I guess, I missed Trunks, especially due to the abruptness of his departure. He was cut out of my life and I couldn't help but miss him at times. But I had Vegeta, and I was feeling something I could call happiness.

That is, until this nightmare struck.

I'm 21 years old and I am perpetually troubled, infuriatingly annoyed, and so very angry because I can't get a child. I look back with dark humor at the time when I told my father I would abort a child if I had one with Vegeta. Now, having a child was my new obsession. And like the obsession I had with Vegeta, it wouldn't go away. 

When I would tell Vegeta about it, and seek comfort with him, he would push me away. He only wanted me if I could bear him children, it seemed. Even he couldn't give me comfort, the last man who I thought had the power too. 

As for my father, I believe whether he will end up with Bra, Bulma, or my mother, is clear. It's all too clear, and sometimes it scares me. I feel I cannot turn to a man who is conquered by his emotions for support, which troubles me in these harsh times that dictate my life. For both of us, the search of happiness is relentless, subconscious, and possibly hopeless. Instinct is our master, and if at times we are too blind to see that, how will we find joy?

Time passes, the world changes, and we change, but the future is always uncertain and the present full of questions. Life becomes contradictory, so much so I even wonder if I exist or if all of this is just a frenzied dream. How can I love and want a man who could never make me happy? How could I want to bring a child into such a desperate, miserable existence as mine?

Such an existence makes me think back to when things were right. As a child, a peace settled over me that was so satisfying, I was blind to it. Now I lead I life where I claw at comfort in a distant place, reaching but never having. Vegeta, Trunks, my father, sometimes they all blur into one person. A person who never give me what I want.

I reached out and took the pregnancy test, thoughts pounding inside of me like a heartbeat. Something was calling to me, something that wasn't a longing for Vegeta or a goddamn baby. A river, a water, a flowing edge I could be lost in and lose the world and everyone in it for just a second. 

Putting the pregnancy test in the trash, one image came flittering to my head. Two months ago, I had attempted suicide. It's not surprising, I suppose. After "marrying" Vegeta, I thought the turmoil and chaos would end. But when it didn't, I panicked. It seemed I never got what I wanted, like happiness or a child, and one night I supposed I never would.

I swallowed handfuls of pills, tears staining my cheeks. I couldn't get a grip, I wasn't even thinking, I just wanted to end it all. I wanted to go to a place where I didn't need anything anymore, where I was just happy. As I finished putting the pregnancy test in the trash, the image of the pills scattered on the floor came to me.

They were red, I remember, and I started to think of how I never would see color again. When I had taken the pills, I had found peace by thinking of a void of nothingness. Now, I saw it as a nightmare. No sight, sound, smell, taste, or touch, just a black abyss. It scared me, but I ignored my fears.

Of course, I didn't die. I was Saiyan, and it's nearly impossible for a Saiyan to overdose. The very thing that was killing me, wouldn't let me die. 

Sighing, I walked out of the room and went to my bedroom. I assumed I would never find release, and the emptiness inside of me swallowed all hope. As I walked into my bedroom and saw the light from the open window hitting the sheets so they glowed, I tried to think of all the things that were worth living for.

Was one of them Vegeta?

I sat down on the bed and saw one of the gloves he had left behind. I reached over to pick it up, not knowing why. Holding it in my hand, tears began to surface again. 

There was so much hate around me, so much need. Living as me was like being in a car crash that kept happening over and over. Everything breaks and splinters and hurts so much, but you never really think deeply about what's going on. You don't think about if things are going to change, and if you do, you don't believe in these thoughts.

I broke off from my daydreaming quickly, because I knew I had better things to do. I was going to get up, and go clean the house, because I had many trivial and disposable purposes, and that was one of them. If I were to die tomorrow, at least the floors would be unswept and the dishes still dirty in the sink. No one else would miss me, but at least my chores would.

Before I got up to attend to them, however, I looked down at the glove I was holding. Vegeta's training glove, similar to the one he wore when he first kissing me and raised it to touch my chin and neck. It was probably one of the only romantic things he had ever done for me, and the tears that had receded moments ago, came back as my grief overcame me. 

If I had a soul, I could feel it wilt as I looked at the glove. 

_Damn the world_, I thought, throwing the glove to the floor so I could sob into my hands.

Damn it for being so beautiful.  


	12. A Final Note

Harvest of the Soulless 

A Final Word

Hi, Poe here again, and I just wanted to clear up confusion and give some news to anyone who wants to read more of my work. 

First of all, I left the ending pretty much open to interpretation. I know that bugs some people, but I feel like an ending that's versatile to a reader's viewpoint is the best kind. Questions like who Gohan ends up with or if Pan really likes Vegeta are answered by the emotions in the story, not the events. 

Second, I just wanted to talk about future plans of mine, for anyone who cares. I might write a series of vignettes on Vegeta's dysfunctional relationships, which will include Pan and Vegeta, that I believe Harvest of the Soulless fans would enjoy. Also, I'm rewriting chapter two of my story "Where I've Fallen", so if you like alternate universe B/V fics, you should take a look and see if you like it. 

Finally, I just wanted to give a huge thanks to the reviewers! I sincerely doubt I would've written eleven chapters to this story if I didn't have inspiration. I did like Harvest of the Soulless, but knowing that people out there seemed to like it even more was really a trip.

Thanks so much to everyone who read this for taking the time to humor my work!

-Poe   


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